I recently won an auction on that "big auction site". A huge blue green Beseler 4 x 5 enlarger with motors and all. It came attached to a very hefty table that you could rebuild a huge diesel engine on, or support the earth practically. So I drove 3.5 hours today to go pick it up. When I got there, come to find out the seller really didn't know what went to this enlarger, so the question I asked before I bid "what negative carriers come with it?" were answered in a very ummm... general way. He had said it came with 35mm, 4 x 5, 6 x 6, 6 x 9. So that got me interested enough to quit bidding on other enlargers and only bid on this one. And.. I won the bidding thinking it was complete. So when I got there, I found it was missing the lens board, and any lenses at all, and it didn't have all those negative carriers. It has just the 4 x 5 and 35mm. The 6x6 and 6x9 where for another enlarger. He felt bad when I pointed this out. He had some other things, said I could take the whole lot if I wanted. I told him I didn't really have that kind of energy to locate missing parts for something and since I was in an apartment I had to really consider my storage. All these things were left by the seller of the house he bought. A mismatched lot of photographic equipment. The house seller was a drunk who gave up on life basically. Well, out of all the equipment he had there there was only one enlarger that was complete. It was the one with the 6x6 and 6x9 carriers. Look at what it is.. here's a fresh picture. Its a Kodak Precision Enlarger. It has no part number on it. Or date. It looks like it comes out of some 1930's era, real art deco styling. I expect it might have been standard equipment on board an alien spaceship or something! hehe. Oh, and what caused me to go home with this instead of that huge monsterous Beseler missing lens board and lenses was the nice surprize inside the head... a DOUBLE condensor and its no cheepie condensor either, its a super fantastic condensor. Its heaps better than any modern condensor I've seen in the dime a dozen Beseler's, Omegas and Dursts. I didn't know Kodak made enlargers at any time. Does anyone know what this is or when it was made or anything like that? It does look out of this world. Oh and it has a lens board and a 105mm Schnieder lens which is quite modern and very very good condition.
So you think I should hang onto this one eh? I did a cursory Google this morning, and also on eBay. Can not find any information on it. I am wondering if this is a relic of some real value! Well, tonight I'm going to set it up and expose some negatives to give it a 1-2 test. This should be interesting. I am thinking it will have very good results. The lamp is over 100 watts, which in comparison to my Beseler Printmaker 35, is at least double. It should cut down my exposure time required quite a bit.
- some info here:
