A belated welcome

I'm a photographer and small-time camera collector. The collecting mania hasn't completely taken over, but whenever I see old cameras at yard sales, estate sales or antique stores I always stop for a look. These photos are of my most recent acquisition, which I made a couple of years ago but never blogged about. It's a Kodak Hawk-Eye No. 2 Folding Cartridge, which I picked up at an estate auction in Joliet for $20 (as part of a boxed lot of various items). I haven't been able to dig up much info on this specific model, but it must have come out sometime between 1910 (the patent date, visible just below the lens aperture) and 1926 (when the followup Model B came out). It's a very clean camera, the aperture works, and it uses 120 film which remains commercially available, so this could conceivably still be functional - though I'm sure I'll never use it for anything other than a fine display piece. That last photo shows the pieces taken apart (which would be necessary to load the film) - the shaft of the takeup spool is actually made of wood, which I was quite surprised and pleased to see.

The Hawk-Eye shares a bookshelf with my Mamiya C33, Beacon and Kodak Brownie.