Sometimes one finds something that throws him so far back into to the past that he wonders whether fate cursed him to living in the wrong time. One such something is the Contessa.
ShopGoodwill.com has become my new guilty pleasure. About a month ago I needed a battery compartment lid for my Yashica Electro 35. Rather than paying $35 for just the bottom part of an Electro, I decided to see how much an entire camera was on ShopGoodwill.com. Sure enough, I ended up paying around $30 for the entire camera and shipping (neither camera works yet, but it's the thrill of the hunt).
I was hooked. So many options, so inexpensive. I keep telling myself (and my girlfriend) that I won't buy more cameras. But I can bid right? I discovered that the site allows users to search only the local Goodwills, which means free pickup. This is how I ended up bidding on three cameras. Well, winning three. I bid on several more.
The first winning bid was for a lot consisting of two waterproof digital cameras. One was a crappy Polaroid, but the other was a Fujifilm Xp120. I've always wanted a waterproof camera so I gave it a shot. I ended up winning the bid at $43.89, a bit more than I wanted to spend, but considering the Fuji alone sells for $50-300, I guess I got a good deal. The camera came with a memory card (apparently a budding YouTuber from Washington owned it, but that's a story for another day) and I used it to take the photos for this post.
Now, the Contessa. I ignored it at first because I didn't know what it was. The photos on the bid page were small and didn't show the camera opened. It just looked like a crappy antique leather case. Several days of checking the page passed before I decided to look a little closer.
The listing said "Vintage Contessa Camera". This meant nothing to me. But when I flipped through the tiny photos I noticed "Zeiss Ikon", that was something I had heard about. I quickly did a search and realized that this was a fairly rare camera, with most examples selling for $180 or more. I had to have it.
So I bid. And bid again. Eventually I won it for a mere $38. Of course, I had no idea if it worked, or even if it had a lens, but I was so anxious to have it that the multiple days I had to wait to pick it up felt like forever. I spent the time learning everything I could about the little Contessa.
Post World War 2 saw Zeiss Ikon split into West and East German sections. The folding Contessa was made by the West Germans in Stuttgart from 1950-1955. My particular camera is a 1951 model, with a "T" beginning it's serial number. The camera has a Tessar lens and a Synchro Compur leaf shutter.
So does it work? I picked it up Saturday (almost an hour early to my appointment, I couldn't wait longer) and played with it in the car. I'm happy to report that as far as I can tell, it's in near perfect working order, even the light meter still works. The only thing that doesn't seem to work is the frame counter, which is a little annoying, but could be due to something I didn't do right when loading it. The only way to truly know if it's working is to load it with film and use it.
I loaded it with some Arista Edu 400 (cheap, yes, but always good for an experiment) and after six (7? Who knows with a broken counter) shots I think maybe the shutter is sticky. We'll see after I finish the roll.
So why do I think I was born in the wrong decade? Because little mechanical wonders like this make my heart palpitate. I don't get the same feeling from a modern digital monstrosity. Pressing buttons and watching a screen is so blasé compared to looking through a microscopic hole and turning knobs and pushing levers until a tiny click registers that an image may or may not have been captured. I love old things, and I hate the current zeitgeist. In my imagination the world was better then in so many ways.
Ironically, if I lived in the time that this was a new camera, I probably couldn't have afforded it. After all, it was competing with Leica. Porsche and Mercedes Benz are also based in Stuttgart, and I definitely can't afford one of them. I can only afford old nice things, and only because I find them on the internet, which was also non-existent in 1951.
Perhaps I was born in exactly the right time, for commerce anyways. Now we just need to bring back clunky over-engineered mechanical cameras and I'll be happy.
Stay tuned for images....
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SDG
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