Recently I was gifted a bright screen for my Yashica A. The same person asked if there was anything he could send me from America. Ooooh, well, seeing as you are asking… Argus cameras are hard to get here and I know they are much cheaper over there. So less than a month later a fantastic box arrived with a few cameras including 2 Argus’ssss. The box even contained some film to try.

There was a Matchmatic and a regular C3. I have already tried a “Brick” before but it wasn’t very successful and I had to leave it in Japan.

This Brick had the serial number 604849, looking at this website, it was one year older than my original one. It was probably produced in 1951. The Matchmatic’s serial number indicated that it was made in 1958.

The Brick had a lens attached, but the Matchmatic did not, so I tried that one first. It was in much better condition than my first example, but the lens seemed a bit off. It was very stiff and could not be moved by the focusing wheel. I had to focus by holding the lens barrel itself. The viewfinder was also very dirty and hard to see through. So I searched for a video to help me clean it and found this great one.

Ok, simple enough…

Brilliant, the viewfinder was all cleaned and the rangefinder was now very clear. So I loaded A roll of Ilford Pan 50 and took it on a rainy camping trip to the North York Moors, and for a rainy day in Chester…it was very rainy this summer.

The camera got some attention, but ultimately the lens issues made it a bit less enjoyable to use…not so much that I didn’t love it though. Now I had to swap the lens over to the other camera *gulp*.

I figured it out, but again something felt off. The infinity was not right, it wasn’t aligning in the viewfinder. Maybe I had done it wrong? I asked a few friends for advice and Mike Eckman sent me a link to a video he had made.

Well, that is what I had done, but I took the lens off and tried again. Then I loaded a roll of Kodak Movie 25 which I had kept in my film box for a while. It was slow, but I was using the camera on the hottest, brightest day of the year. I knew I could hand-hold the camera at the speeds needed. After development, I was so disappointed there was something wrong with the set-up

Bugger. Back to the drawing board.

First, I decided to find out how to adjust the rangefinder and I found this video. I followed that and did what it suggested. But no matter what I did, the infinity would not match with the dial when it was actually showing infinity on the scale. It was always slightly off. I would probably not look at the scale while shooting but rely on the rangefinder instead. So I ended up making sure the rangefinder matched the lens. I set the rangefinder image to focus at infinity and then unscrewed the big screw on the lens which lets you adjust it manually.

I then looked through the back via a focusing screen to make sure it was sharp at infinity.

Then it came to rescrewing the big screw and making sure the lens focusing would not slip…the screw would not go back in, either the hole or the screw had lost some thread. Double bugger.

I needed a bigger screw, I tried everything in my junk box but nothing would fit. I went into the garage and looked everywhere for something, anything that would fit. I found this…

Well, it wasn’t pretty, but would it work? The loop was a tight squeeze when it had to go over the lens mounting dial, but it did go past it. The thumb focusing remained very stiff so I still had to turn it by holding the lens barrel. Luckily everything stayed tight when I did so.

There was now another issue though…I could not use this lens on the Brick due to the change in focusing. Hmm, what to do? Well, as I had gained these cameras for free, I decided to invest in another junk lens from America. They are very expensive here and even with the postage being the same price as the lens, it was still much cheaper than buying one from here. So for a total of $35 and a month later I had a lens on each camera, hopefully both focusing correctly.

I loaded the Matchmatic with a roll of FP4, took both to Morley and wandered around. I intended to switch the film halfway through in order not to waste film if either camera did not work correctly. Actually, I nearly lost the whole film anyway as I realised during its development that I didn’t have any fixer ready. I had to scramble to get it done in time and found I didn’t have enough chemicals either, only about 50ml when I needed at least 70ml. I had been trying to use it all up so I could order some EcoFix from Zone Imaging and forgot. I had just about enough to cover the 500ml needed in the tank, but you can still see some solarization effects in the photos.

Here are a few of the weird fix results from the Matchmatic…

Infinity looks great, but close-up shots are still not perfect.

How about the brick and the new lens?

Again it looks fine. So I now have two working Argus C3s.

I have decided to keep the Brick but give away the Matchmatic. It was a gift to me, so I have decided to pay it forward. As this is the camera from the Harry Potter films I know a few people over here would be very interested in it. When I looked, there were none for sale on eBay from sellers based in the UK.

As I will be at Analogue Spotlight 2023 this weekend, here is how you can get the camera…find me and say, “Mischief achieved”. If you are the first, the camera is yours.