Just one example for millions of cameras built by countless manufacturers all following the simplest and most popular design ever made, this box camera has been produced by Agfa in the 1920's.

The only notable thing about this one is the clever advertising Agfa did to sell it. To this day, German coins have a small single letter, on one face, showing in which particular plant of the German State Mint they have been made.

Agfa sold this camera for a mere 4 Marks with the condition that customers paid using two 1 Mark coins with the letter A, one with an F, and one with a G...... A - G - F - A. :)

The camera itself is a typical 6 x 9 cm rollfilm box for 120 film. A wooden case covered with black leatherette, a single lens element, one shutter speed, and two f-stops. The two small lenses on the front belong to the two viewfinders, one for lanscape and one for portrait.

The shutter consists of a rotatable metal blade with a hole in the middle which is flipped back and forth across the lens by an excenter mechanism consisting of a small lever and a spring. One picture is taken by pulling the shutter lever upwards and the next by pushing it down again.

Dacora Digna

This is my very first medium format camera, bought second (?) hand from a Cologne camera shop for the equivalent of 10 dollars.

The Digna by Dacora of Reutlingen is a typical example of a simple 6 x 6 cm rollfilm camera in a style made by dozens of German camera manufacturers in the 50's and early 60's.

The specification is still the same as that of the pre-war models. Only the bellows has been replaced by a metal tube which can be pushed into the housing and locked to give the camera a size comparable to that of the 35 mm cameras which were quickly becoming a deadly competition to the larger format.

The lens is a Dignar 4.5/75 mm with simple front-element focussing in what looks like a Vario Compur shutter.