Yesterday I was browsing Facebook Market place and noticed and advert for what looked like 6 box brownies. They were £30, unfortunately I didn’t take a screenshot, but the cameras in the photo were the basic box brownie type. I thought, well that is a bit much for 6 cheapo brownies. But out of interest I decided to read the description instead of just skimming passed it. Holy Moly, this wasn’t for 6 cameras, that photo was a taster. This listing was for over 60 cameras!
I couldn’t resist that so I sent a message and arranged to pick them up the next day, and not a minute too soon. Once I got to the location I found the cameras in a number of boxes in a garage. Later, looking through them I found a few were a bit damp, the bags were on the cusp of starting to get moldy.
I brought them into my house and started going through them. In all there totaled 67 cameras, nearly all different. Of those 3 didn’t seem to be working, but might be fixable and 5 were beyond help and were not worth fixing. Lots of them took 620 film which I have never tried and is not really available, but luckily many had an empty spool inside. So for the spools alone, it was worth the drive.
Once I had made a list and sorted them, I picked out 4 to give a quick clean and to retrieve the spools. One of those had a 120 spool jammed inside which proved to me it wouldn’t really work. Now I have a 620 spool in my hand I can see the diameter is a little smaller than 120 so they turn smoothly. I have previously opened a brownie and cleaned it so I had a tiny bit of experience on that front.
I had no experience respooling 120 film onto 620 spools so I watched this video.
I didn’t roll it onto a 620 then roll it onto another 620. I just unrolled it loose then respooled it onto the 620, it worked fine.
Then I loaded it into one of the cameras I had cleaned.
Not the sexiest choice, but it was now clean and it worked smoothly. I will try it out sometime in the next couple of weeks.
And here is a list of all the cameras in the lot.
Kodak Brownies (I just don’t want to write this loads of times)
Six-20 Model C
No.2 – 116
Cresta
Six-20 Popular
Six-20 Junior
Portrait No.2
Popular
Flash B
Flash 20
C (four examples)
127 (three examples)
Cresta 3 (Three examples)
Six-20 Target
Brownies with no other information (Six examples, one with a built in filter, one blue)
Six-20 Model D (4 examples)
Flash II (Two examples each with a flash attachment, one 4 version, one 5 version)
Duaflex
Modern No.2
44A
Reflex 20
Bullet
Starmite
Flashmite
Kodak Hawkeyes
Cartridge Model B (two examples)
No.2 Model C
Mod B B
Portrait Star
Extra – Kodak Flash holder Model II in box
Coronet
Popular twelve (two examples)
Twelve 20
Every
D-20
Conway
Conway Popular
Cadet
Other Makes
Balda Frontbox
Ensign E-29 (two examples, one blue – takes 129 film which is unavailable)
Ensign Ful-Vue
Ernemann 6×9 Box Brownie Type Camera **this could be the star piece, rarer**
Folding cameras – not working, might be fixable
Kershaw Penguin Eight 20
Kodak Folding Brownie Six 20
Balda Baldanette
I definitely will not be film testing all of these. I will choose a few examples to compare and might think about an exhibition in the future. Otherwise they are going to be stuck in boxes and bags for a long time.
And if you got all the way to the end of this list and post…One camera, an unsalvageable Kodak had a 127 film roll inside. It looked in fairly good condition so I tried to develop it. In the end….there was no film, it was just the backing paper. I could use it to respool some 35mm onto it as there are a number of those kind of cameras in the lot.
