Ansco Speedex (Speedex Junior (B2): 1936–1940)
Not one camera but a family of folding 120 models from Binghamton. German bones, American assembly, and a price tag that keeps medium format within reach.
Overview
The Ansco Speedex is a family of folding 120 film cameras built at the Agfa/Ansco works in Binghamton, New York. Anyone shopping the name today will run into at least three variants: the Speedex Junior (B2), the Speedex 4.5 Special, and the Standard Speedex. They share a silhouette - a self-erecting folding body that collapses flat for the pocket and swings out to shooting position - but they are not the same camera, and the spec sheets don't line up neatly between them.
What they do share is a design philosophy. Period documentation describes the line as "scientifically designed for simplicity of operation so that excellent pictures can be obtained" - a plainspoken way of saying this was never meant to be a prestige object. It was a working camera for people who wanted a big negative without a big learning curve. Ansco didn't market it as a luxury item or a technical marvel.
The Speedex line also has a strong German accent. The design bears the fingerprints of the Agfa partnership, and the 4.5 Special in particular is widely recognized as a rebadged Agfa Isolette II, sharing its core mechanics and optics. For American buyers in the late 1930s, that meant European engineering with domestic distribution and service, which kept the line viable right up to the war.
Key Features
Agfa f4.5 Agnar Anastigmat Lens
The documented Speedex variants use the Agfa f4.5 Agnar Anastigmat, an 85mm lens on the Speedex B2 and 4.5 Special models. It's color corrected and hard-coated. The coating wasn't a marketing flourish. It improved light transmission and reduced internal reflections, a real advantage when plenty of lenses still had no anti-reflective treatment at all. The f/4.5 maximum aperture is modest by later standards, but paired with the 6x6 cm negative it was more than adequate for daylight work, and the Agnar's reputation for sharpness gave the Speedex credibility with serious amateurs.
One caveat for anyone cross-shopping: eBay listing titles for the Standard Speedex routinely describe an "Anastigmat 90mm f/6.3" lens, which doesn't match the 85mm f/4.5 figure documented for the B2 and 4.5 Special. That discrepancy likely reflects a different lens fitted to the Standard variant rather than a documentation error, but the fact sheet doesn't resolve it. Treat the 85mm figure as confirmed for the B2 and 4.5 Special only.
6x6 cm Format on 120 Roll Film
Shooting 120 film in a 6x6 cm format gave the Speedex a serious advantage in image quality over 35mm cameras of the time. The larger negative meant more enlargement headroom and finer detail in the final print, which is why medium format held its ground against the smaller format through the late 1930s. Twelve exposures per roll was the trade-off, but for landscape, portrait, and architectural work that was rarely a hardship.
Owners who still shoot these cameras tend to cite the format as the reason. One user described the 4.5 Special as "about as compact as one will ever get in a 120 camera that shoots 6x6 shots." The camera sat flat in a coat pocket between shots and opened to full working configuration in seconds.
Self-Erecting Folding Body
The folding mechanism is the defining physical trait of the Speedex family. The body stays compact when not in use, then extends smoothly to the correct focal distance when the front standard is released. It demands care. The struts and bellows are the parts most likely to need attention after decades in a drawer. But it's also why these cameras are still usable today. A rigid-body medium format camera of equivalent format would have been several times the bulk.
The German influence shows most clearly here. The Speedex 4.5 Special shares mechanics with the Agfa Isolette II, so parts and repair knowledge from the Isolette world often transfer directly. That's a meaningful advantage for anyone maintaining one today.
Simplicity of Operation
Ansco's stated design intent - "scientifically designed for simplicity of operation so that excellent pictures can be obtained" - reads like ad copy, but it describes a real engineering priority. The Speedex was built so that a competent photographer could load it, extend it, frame, and shoot without consulting a manual every time. There's no metering, no automation, and no menu system. The operator does the thinking.
Historical Context
Production of the Ansco Speedex Junior (B2) ran from 1936 to 1940, ending with the onset of World War II. That cutoff wasn't unique to Ansco. Civilian camera production across the board was disrupted as factories shifted to wartime work.
In 1945, both Ansco and Agfa resumed camera production, introducing updated models like the new Speedex Junior with an accessory shoe. A revised Junior after the war implies the pre-war line had been discontinued during the conflict. The accessory shoe is a small detail: flash photography was becoming a mainstream expectation, and Ansco was adapting.
The Speedex's production years sit at what was arguably the peak of American-based camera manufacturing under European design influence. Post-war shifts would favor Japanese innovation in the consumer market, but in the late 1930s the Binghamton works were turning out folding cameras that could hold their own against anything coming out of Germany, largely because much of the design was German to begin with.
Collectibility & Value
The Ansco Speedex is neither rare nor expensive. Collectors describe cameras like the Ansco Standard Speedex as "easy to come by and don't cost much," and the current market bears that out. A used Speedex 4.5 has recently listed for $25.38, while a new-old-stock example was priced at $42.30. eBay listings for Standard Speedex bodies have been observed at $25.00, $35.28, $23.49, and $49.95 across various conditions and lens configurations.
That makes the Speedex a budget-friendly way into medium format, arguably one of the cheapest ways to put a 6x6 cm negative on film without resorting to a toy camera. The trade-off is that you're buying into a system with no modern support, and the folding mechanism is the weak point.
No widespread failure modes are documented, but a restoration account titled "Ansco Speedex Brought Back to Life" indicates that, like any vintage folding camera, it may require cleaning, lubrication, or bellows repair after decades of storage. Bellows pinholes are the classic issue with any folding camera of this age, and the struts and front standard benefit from careful handling. On the positive side, at least one well-documented Speedex 4.5 Special has remained in regular use for over eight years, with its owner reporting it "has been working great for the past 8 or 9 years."
For a collector, the Speedex is a low-stakes entry point into pre-war American folding cameras with German design underneath. For a shooter, it's a cheap way to try 6x6 without committing to a Rolleiflex or a Mamiya.
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