Kodak Folding Pocket Kodak (1897–1915)
The Folding Pocket Kodak is a series name covering several related Kodak folding cameras that began production around 1897-98. The No. 1 was the original, and Kodak's own 1903 trade catalog claimed no camera was ever more enthusiastically received. The series grew to include No. 2, No. 3 and No. 3-A variants, with the No. 3 running from 1900 to 1915. A specimen in the Science Museum Group Collection is dated 1897-1899 and described as a folding camera with brass parts, an achromatic lens and two reflecting finders.
The basic 1897-98 model took 2¼ × 3¼ exposures on Kodak 105 film rolls and had an achromatic f/11 lens. The No. 3 shot 3¼ × 4¼ images on No. 118 film. It had an aluminum body covered in seal grain leather, and it was a vertical-format camera with a reflecting finder. The No. 3 De Luxe swapped in the faster Bausch & Lomb Plastigmat lens at f/6.8. The 3-A was big. One reviewer at vintage-photo.nl joked you'd need very deep pockets in a winter coat to call it a pocket camera. It measured 24 cm long, 12.07 cm wide and 4.5 cm thick, with red bellows and an adjustable waistfinder.
Little is documented beyond these basics. No original price for the general series has surfaced, and surviving records don't reconcile exact production dates across all variants. One listing describes a collapsing-front example with brass fittings, produced 1897-1898, at an original price of 10 (currency unstated). The Science Museum notes a rotary shutter with T/I settings. A Russian seller of a No. 3 Folding Pocket Model G noted its shutter was, unfortunately, non-working.
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