So I saw this at an antique store today. It had gone down since last time I saw it and I was thinking about getting it, and had even talked the owner down another fifteen dollars and was about to go for it, when I realized the front standard looked slightly skewed to one side--the ground glass seemed to confirm this. I also noticed that the lenses seemed to have had fungus at some point, which seems to have been removed, but with definite etching of the inner surfaces.
It was a fairly plain, transitional-period sort of budget 120 TLR, badged "Royalcord" with no other markings. The advance was by knob, and cocking was manual, but it had automatic frame spacing with a manual release, like Kodak Reflex II. It did not feature any facility for using 220 film. The front standard was shaped about like that on a Yashicamat, and it had bayonet filter mounts, but the shutter was a self-contained rimset unit from "Ceres," with a cocking lever. The shutter seemed good at all speeds but it took firing it at "B" a couple of times before it stayed open for me. Still, the etching on the lens and the misalignment were compelling reasons not to buy it.
My question, simply because I'm curious, not because I'm going to purchase, is this: is this a rebadging of some other manufacturer's budget TLR? Because I can find next to nothing online about the Royalcord name.
It was a fairly plain, transitional-period sort of budget 120 TLR, badged "Royalcord" with no other markings. The advance was by knob, and cocking was manual, but it had automatic frame spacing with a manual release, like Kodak Reflex II. It did not feature any facility for using 220 film. The front standard was shaped about like that on a Yashicamat, and it had bayonet filter mounts, but the shutter was a self-contained rimset unit from "Ceres," with a cocking lever. The shutter seemed good at all speeds but it took firing it at "B" a couple of times before it stayed open for me. Still, the etching on the lens and the misalignment were compelling reasons not to buy it.
My question, simply because I'm curious, not because I'm going to purchase, is this: is this a rebadging of some other manufacturer's budget TLR? Because I can find next to nothing online about the Royalcord name.
