18 

ALBUMS THROUGH THE LAST CENTURY

My Grandma's Photo-album from 1912.

"Carte de visite” was a kind of small photograph, made on a thin print paper mounted on a thicker paper card made in the Standard size  54 mm × 89 mm from 1870's into the early 20th century!!

At a fairly low price common people could be able to exchange a lot of them to all their friends and visitors. 

Albums made in different sizes were made for 2,3 or 4 of those standard 54x89 cm pictures on each page.

                      

Such albums for the collection and display of cards became a common fixture on Victorian parlour tables. 

A very rugged, torn and ugly old leather album contained a few surprises, that I found interesting.

Inside it turned out to be a more exclusive sort of Album.

The pages were tastefully decorated. And under the last page of pictures a small Swiss mechanical music box was hidden. It still is able to play "Home sweet home" or as an alternative "Home to the range".    

This was the first "Music album" I came across.

But in some sense Albums for gramophone records could be called Music albums too.

These were probably used in the early years of the 1910's. 

This strange album seems to be from the 1930's

A German course in typewriting using marsh music to get the proper rhythm. Made by Winklers Verlag (Gebrüder Grimm) Darmstadt. In those days the drudging labour of typing documents was generally assigned to female personnel. - But the idea with marsh music seems very strange to me. 

                                                    

     

 Music albums in the sense I remember them looked like this. In the 1940's we had record changers able to play a whole album automatically.

 LP records were introduced in the 1950's. Microgrooves increased the time of playing to an album on  one record. To my surprise the phrase "Music album" continued to be used!

This little trick seems a bit absurd. 

"Warning! Do not use as LP's on your old turntable. These are just the front of four 12 cm CD-records produced by Attention media."

ALBUM

The word is still used today by music artists, media and record companies meaning a collection of songs. But that's another story.

17.

SOME

MORE BROWNIES FOUND

The Kodak Brownie Box-cameras were produced from 1900 to 1957.
Apart from the design and a flash contact, it was the same simple box as always.

From the commonly used Kodak 620 film you got pictures size 6x9 cm.

Slightly bigger pictures got popular in USA by using the 616 film.

In my view that improvement from 6x9 to 6,5x11 cm format was hardly significant.

  

Over the years the exteriors changed

in colours and patterns according to 

the taste of its time. 

       Enamelled font in
      "Art Nouveau"
         but still the same old
         Brownie concept.

Already in 1901 Kodak realized that the Box-cameras were a bit clumsy.

Most of the forerunners had bellows to achieve a good focusing. To mimic a more professional camera, a "Brownie Folding" were made too, but in a bit simpler version. Not that inexpensive as the boxes though.

A cheaper version were made in 1937. It looked well, but had the same performance as the eldest boxes. That is "fix-focus" and only one shutter-speed (I) unless you had a good tripod and solid knowledge of measuring light and time determination (B).

The main problem with Brownie-boxes was the "fix-focus", that meant a lack of focus closer to the camera than 2 meters. So the german factory invented a built in Portrait-lens that could be used for "close ups" between 1 and 2 meters.

 Kodak cameras were made in many countries and in all sorts of design, inventions and constructions. 

But I am not aware of any trademark as long lived as

Brownie.

16.

EARLY RECORDS WITH COLOUR

WOUGE records appeared in the 1940s with embedded illustrations of the time.

Made by Sav-Way Industries of Detroit USA.

These records were 25 cm and the speed 78 RPM.

Sounding good compared to the usual shellac records.

The core was of aluminium coated with clear plastic.

****************

Record Guild of America, 16 cm 78 RPM of stiff cardboard.
The very first crude gramophone Emile Berliner invented was merely a toy for young kids.
Still popular well into the 1940s were all kinds of illustrated records for toy gramophones.

Like the one in my blog page no. 2.

**************** 

The brittle shellac gramophone-records hung on for several decades. Still running 78 rounds per minute.

But by new electro technical inventions the grooves could be closer engraved, making the records smaller.

**************** 

So these new and smaller records had to prove that this was a revolutionary and important innovation. Hence the names of the iconic names:
Edison and Bell.




Some radio stations were a bit reluctant to the names Radio and Broadcast. But soon they found out, that collaboration would benefit both radio programs and the gramophone industry. 

****************

Many experiments were made in the 1930s.
A small German view card size only10x14 cm with 78RPM. That had to be a very short version of the "Helen of Troy".





Another huge novelty 1929-30 was the unbreakable record.
Made of thin celluloid it could be bent and was easy to handle.

Over the years they were not flat any more. The material contained camphor that evaporated and made the cellulose acetate instable. But with a light weight pickup from the 1960s they could be played again - sort of.

But they were indeed colourful!

15.

FROM "FALLING PLATES" TO BOXES FOR EVERYBODY

Around 1900 every one recognized the shape of a  camera.

  

    
They were mostly of the folding type with bellows for studio or field cameras like this one.

My father's uncle was very proud of this semi-professional camera for single 12x18 cm glass plates. The combination of parts from Rietzschel, Bausch & Lomb and Rodenstock made his camera outstanding in those days. 

   

Early BOX CAMERAS used glass negatives. 

For amateurs cheaper and easier ways of photographing popped up during this time. Sometimes people called them Detective cameras (?).  Such an innocent looking little case did not look as the camera above.


The rear of the boxes had a magazine loaded with twelve negative glass plates in thin black sheet metal covers.                   

Mostly called Falling plates cameras the system seemed to work fine, though is has been designed already in 1890.
Above all it was cheap and handy. Not very sophisticated lenses and small apertures made bright sunshine a necessity. 
Amateurs gladly accepted that, as they could take 12 pictures in a row!

The entire camera had to be left to the local photo-shop that sent it over to a laboratory. There the plates got professionally handled in red light when developing the plates.

Paper prints were made and the camera was reloaded and returned with twelve new unexposed negatives.

1 Merkur was one of these popular Magazine cameras from Hüttig in Dresden Germany. It had fix focus and crude small apertures marked 1, 2 and 3. (No standard values)

2 Hasselblads Express was a copy of a similar box, but made in Gothenburg Sweden and sold by V.A. Hasselblad about 1899.











Here  I have tried to show that name again because it meant so much to me. In the 1950's HASSELBLAD was a very well-known camera maker. Little did I know, that this family business had started long before 1900. 

This Hasselblad Svea Camera from the early 1900's was a more sophisticated Magazinebox though. New inventions and designs reached the market every year. 

Family story: 
Arvid Hasselblad was a wholesaler who imported cameras already in 1877. He also started a special branch for selling photo equipment. The Swedish agency for KODAK products also was acquired.
Arvids son Karl was the father of the famous inventor Victor Hasselblad, who made this trademark famous in connection with the first Moon landing 1969. Of course KODAK film was used then.

  


 
The Kodak name was registered already in 1885 by George Eastman In USA. It rapidly became the greatest film factory of all. He provided celluloid film for Thomas Edison´s movie experiments. Then a market for film seemed to be a good idea.
Eastman came up with the name KODAK and sold millions of roll-films for still cameras by selling cheap Box-cameras too. 

 The first attempt Kodak no 1 was no hit, but this one called Kodak no 2 was successful and became the origin of all Box-cameras. It was made in Rochester NY USA about 1900.
 A friendly old man gave me this obsolete Box. The odd size of 9 cm films was then no longer obtainable. 

Unlike all later Box-cameras, the film was winded horizontally. The rear part had only the covering leather as hinges. Mine are still intact. But many owners meant that they were all to fragile.

The BROWNIE

was most profitable for Eastman's film sale. Extremely easy camera to make and handle. 

The cheapest price for a Brownie was 2$ !

  

These early boxes were made of cardboard. 

But over the years designs, sizes and materials were improved.
Camera makers all over the world very soon copied this new idea.
Boxes were the most common cameras for the first part of the 20th century.