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Tonicito
Tinkerer
Username: Tonicito
Post Number: 1
Registered: 01-2012
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, February 05, 2012 - 02:16 pm: | 
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Hi everyone! 
This is my first post in this forum, so I hope I am asking it in the right place. Please be patient with a newbie! ;)
I recently got a new old camera, a Voigtländer Rollfilm 5x8 (picture can be seen here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/tonicito/6640128439/). The lens is a Heliar 8.3cm 1:4.5 and it is mounted on a dial set Compur shutter speeded up to 1/300.
By the serial number on my Heliar (314325) I could date it to 1927 (through some lists of Voigtländer serial numbers available on the web). Then I tried to find out the year of my shutter as well, since lenses could be manufactured years before they were mounted on a camera. The serial number on my dial set Compur is 44414 and, I am not sure if it corresponds to one of the standard sizes, but it is really small (maybe a #000?). Now, all references I was able to find in the web for Compur serial numbers (for example here: http://camera-wiki.org/wiki/Compur_serial_numbers, although all seem to take the source from Wilkinson, M, and C Glanfield. 2001. A Lens Collector's Vade Mecum) begin with 214000 in 1912.
It seems to me that the serial numbers on the dial-set Compur were not that standardized, or they followed another system...
Does anyone know a sound way to determine the age of a dial-set Compur? How old is my shutter really (I would guess sometime between 1927 and 1929, because in 1930 the first rim-set Compur shutters were used on this model...)
Many thanks in advance!
Toni |
Finnegan
Tinkerer
Username: Finnegan
Post Number: 176
Registered: 09-2009
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, June 22, 2012 - 04:34 pm: |
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It sounds like the shutter was made at the same time as the lens, circa 1927. |
Glenn
Tinkerer
Username: Glenn
Post Number: 1025
Registered: 07-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, June 23, 2012 - 08:51 am: |
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One fact, that people never seem to add to the equation in these seemingly never ending debates, is the possibility that these shutters were produced to special order for Voigtlander. Production line stamping/engraving of serial numbers is a relatively foolproof way of checking production numbers, especially if the shutters had cosmetic differences to the standard factory products. I cannot recall ever seeing any research into Voitlander's purchasing procedures for raw materials and proprietary parts - So whilst Wilkinson and Glanfield is a very well respected tome, if Deckel did produce special production runs of shutters over the years, it is going to take somebody with a real specialist knowledge to answer your query authoritively. |
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