Film Vest Pocket Kodak

Sorry to hear of your loss, all the best to you and your wife.
That's an interesting find though! I don't think I'd heard of this camera before, it's wonderful :)
 
lens may well be there after all - after reading up a bit apparently its a common mistake thinking no lens
 
yes but need to patch the bellows & clean / oil first
some of the levers are a bit stuck

I have another camera to get working first though - Konica S3
 
Frank Hurley Photographer on Antartic Expedition

As official photographer, between 1914 and 1916 Hurley was marooned in the polar ice with Shackleton on his ill-fated ship Endurance. Hurley's took a variety of cameras, including a motion-picture camera, a plate camera and a single Vest Pocket Kodak camera.

On abandoning ship Shackleton ordered that only possessions not exceeding 2 pounds weight could be removed. Hurley could keep only 120 glass photographic plates of the voyage and recorded the remainder of the odyssey with his VPK and three rolls of film.


some photos here - regardless of camera used they are worth a look

frank hurley endurance photographs - Google Search
 
I have several in my collection and I haven't even photographed most of them. The oldest one I have though is a 1924 model that has "Kodak" in big, elaborate letters that look somehow Germanic to me.

All of them have lenses and working shutters. NONE of them has a good bellows that could be used for actual photography.
 
Here are the ones I have, first as a group and left to right: 1920's Vest Pocket No. 1A, 1940's Junior Six-Sixteen Series II (No. 1), and a derivative from the 1950's a Vigilant Junior Six-20.

The "Juniors" full name was "Vest Pocket Junior".

Pretty much as I received them and I didn't set up for good photography, lol. Just the GH1 and the Olympus 17mm f/1.8.

VestPockets.jpg
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Closer look at the 1A -- I love the lettering on the stand/latch on the bottom.

1A.jpg
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And the later -- and extremely simplistic -- No. 1.

1.jpg
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The somewhat more advanced Junior Six-20.

Junior616-II.jpg
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I'm remembering the eras from memory so I may be off, but that is their general time frame.
 
ReD said:
John - All yours are front hinge door (protecting the lens)

mine is a pull out panel
Click to expand...

Yes, I think yours may be older. Shame that it has no lens -- not that they are easy to shoot with anyway with modern film. They generally have max shutter speeds of about 1/50 or LESS, the aperture range is slow and limited although the one I have is f/6.3 to f/45. It takes a much smaller aperture to get much DOF with larger format cameras.

The films back then were so slow that low shutter speeds were needed in bright sunlight with those slow lenses as well.
 
Thanks Luke - some superb images there

some of these cameras are supposed to have a miniscus lens hidden behind the shutter - this maybe one of them

apparently a few people have converted digital cameras to take the miniscus lens - sought after in Japan
 
this thread has me kicking myself over an antique store window display of old cameras that were $10 each. None were tested or guaranteed to work, but I think the primary reason for them being $10 was that the owners assumed there was no longer film being made for them. In hindisght, I should have made an offer for the whole lot and just considered each one a disposable. I need to see if that place still exists...and if they still have the cameras.
 

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