Kodak No. 4A Folding Kodak Model C

Name: Kodak No. 4A Folding Kodak
Brand: Kodak

Surviving information on this model is thin, and even the name needs a caveat. The period record calls it the No. 4A Folding Kodak Model C, a folding rollfilm camera made by Eastman Kodak Co. of Rochester, NY. It is not a small camera. One dealer put it plainly: it's a folding camera, but "not regular at all - it's huge," measuring roughly 17×28 cm folded. The body is leather-covered wood with black leather bellows.

What little specification detail exists comes from institutional collections. The Science Museum Group holds an example with a Carl Zeiss Jena Tessar lens and a compound shutter offering speeds of 1/2/5/10/25/50/100 plus T and B. It has a screw rising front, a sliding cross front, and sliding rack focusing. A Christie's lot from the Koslov Collection of Cameras and Scientific Instruments describes a different configuration with a Rapid Rectilinear lens, which suggests the camera was sold with various lens options rather than one standard fit. The camera shoots 126 format rollfilm, a film stock discontinued in 1949, so shooting it today takes expired stock or an adapted film. A leather case for the camera measures 300×180×80 mm.

Beyond those facts, the record goes quiet. No production years, no original price, no weight, and nothing on how the "Model C" designation distinguishes this from other No. 4A variants have surfaced in the research. No period reviews or owner accounts have been located either. It appears to have been a serious, large-format folding camera of the kind Kodak built in the early decades of the twentieth century, and it survives today mostly in collections and auction listings.

Known specs, such as they are: