Do any of you have a "birth year camera"?

Maris

Member
Joined
Jan 17, 2006
Messages
1,577
Location
Noosa, Australia
Format
Multi Format
Birth year lens: Voigtlander Braunschweig Heliar 1:4.5 /21cm in a Compound shutter. We both still operate and make photographs although well out of original calibration.
 

mshchem

Subscriber
Joined
Nov 26, 2007
Messages
14,818
Location
Iowa City, Iowa USA
Format
Medium Format
I have a Leica that was made in 1933. I'm from December of 56. I think, other than that old Leica every thing is newer than me. I'm not sure if that should make me happy or sad.
 

loccdor

Subscriber
Joined
Jan 12, 2024
Messages
1,585
Location
USA
Format
Multi Format
Last year when I visited my father, I took my birth year camera, Canon T-90, 1986. Attached to it was his birth year lens, Jupiter-9 85mm f/2, made in 1958. The lens and camera have some wear, and so do we.
 

FriedLouisStudio

Member
Joined
Mar 11, 2023
Messages
189
Location
Hudson Valley, NY
Format
35mm
I was born in 1955. I have a 1956 Minox IIIs that I carried daily for many years. I recently got a 1955 Leica IIIf.

I've got a bunch of late fifties/earliest sixties cameras too. Not to mention older thirties/forties Kodaks and Graphics.
 

guangong

Member
Joined
Sep 10, 2009
Messages
3,589
Format
Medium Format
My friend gifted me a very early Leica IIIa for my birthday about 20 yrs ago. Both myself and camera still going strong.
 

Besk

Member
Joined
Jul 30, 2005
Messages
587
Location
Southern USA
Format
Multi Format
Not too many cameras I would want that were made in my birth year- 1943.
 

RalphLambrecht

Subscriber
Joined
Sep 19, 2003
Messages
14,668
Location
K,Germany
Format
Medium Format
mshchem said:
I have a Leica that was made in 1933. I'm from December of 56. I think, other than that old Leica every thing is newer than me. I'm not sure if that should make me happy or sad.
Click to expand...

Happy, nobody has yet come up with a good alternative to getting old.
 

eli griggs

Member
Joined
Nov 15, 2005
Messages
3,857
Location
NC
Format
Multi Format
Yes, the Minolta "export" 6x6cm, TLR, 1958.

I may have others but it's nothing I care to research.
 

Rolleiflexible

Member
Joined
Mar 22, 2005
Messages
2,193
Location
Mars Hill, NC
Format
Multi Format
I've not shot 35mm in ages. But I still have my old M3, serial 918xxx. The Leica files show it as part of a block of M3s that left the factory on January 14, 1958. I was born nine days later.
 

flyingchange

Member
Joined
Aug 16, 2023
Messages
5
Location
Montana
Format
Medium Format
Oh gosh I do, got an AE-1 when I started with film but didn't realize until after I'd gotten it that they came out the year I was born. A few months after I came out tho.
 

madNbad

Member
Joined
Sep 25, 2020
Messages
1,402
Location
Portland, Oregon
Format
35mm RF
The M3 stared production the year I was born but have always preferred the M2 or M4.
I do own a Polaroid SX-70 Alpha 1 that came off the line on my twenty second birthday.
 

Philippe-Georges

Subscriber
Joined
Apr 11, 2005
Messages
2,680
Location
Flanders Fields
Format
Medium Format
Rolleiflexible said:
I've not shot 35mm in ages. But I still have my old M3, serial 918xxx. The Leica files show it as part of a block of M3s that left the factory on January 14, 1958. I was born nine days later.
Click to expand...

This what I have too, a 1958 M3 with a Summicron 50mm rigid 7 elements, but I was born exactly I day later than your M3...

But I really would like to have and shoot a 1958 Hasselblad with matching Planar 80mm, just for the fun of it...
 

c.d.ewen

Subscriber
Joined
Jan 27, 2005
Messages
685
Location
Northeast USA
Format
ULarge Format
OK, I'll confess - I've got a Leica IIIc S/N 423xxx, which I believe equals to my birth year, 1946. I've also got a Nicca marked, "Made in Occupied Japan", which is close enough for me.

Charley
 

Klaus_H

Subscriber
Joined
Apr 18, 2006
Messages
117
Location
Lower Saxony
Format
Medium Format
AGFA Super Isolette.
The camera was overhauled a few years ago. It is still in use.
 

DWThomas

Subscriber
Joined
Jun 13, 2006
Messages
4,607
Location
SE Pennsylvania
Format
Multi Format
Hmmm -- were I running for office I might claim to have a birth year camera. That's based on the Argus C-3 having appeared in 1939 and produced into the 1960s. I appeared in 1941, but didn't acquire my C-3 until the end of 1957. Still have it, it's still operable. There are results from it in my galleries here related to it's use for annual "Argus Day" festivities.

I also own a Burke & James Press 4x5 for which dating seems a bit murky, but I believe goes back to "somewhere" in the 1940s. (I acquired it circa 1963.)

[brief interruption]
Ah! Quick research indicates the Kodak Brownie Target Six-20 box camera began in 1941. I was gifted a new one circa 1949 (probably to keep me away from Mom's folding Kodak -- model and current whereabouts unknown,) I still have the Brownie, it still works.

"Time sure flies -- whether you're having fun or not!"
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Menu
Log in
Register
Cookies are required to use this site. You must accept them to continue using the site. Learn more…