"B" Ordinary Kodak

Format

darkroom-loaded roll film, 24 exposures

System

Kodak Ordinary / Daylight

Shutter

special sector, string-cocked

Focusing

fixed universal

Metering

none

Spec Notes

Two dimensions from the B Daylight - lens class and loading system - on Kodak's own price-list block, which gives the Ordinary a SINGLE lens and the Daylight a DOUBLE. Natural wood finish, reflecting finder, exposure counter. A NEAR-MISS WORTH RECORDING: the research brief reported against itself that Kodak's 1894 per-model entry for the C Ordinary says 'double lens', contradicting the summary block. The adversarial pass pulled the complete per-model paragraphs and THE PHRASE IS NOT THERE - Kodak never states lens count per model, only in the price-list block. There is no contradiction, and the split rests on firmer ground than its own author thought. NO PRICE IS RECORDED ON THIS ROW. AA-13's 'ORIGINAL LIST PRICE' column is not a list price - established in slice 7 and sharpened in slice 8. In this era Kodak's own catalogues give the real figures anyway, and where they matter to a row-shape decision they are quoted in these notes instead of stored as data. DATES ARE MARKET DATES, NOT PRODUCTION. AA-13 heads its columns 'ON THE MARKET FROM / TO'. Where Kodak's own catalogues place a model outside AA-13's span the conflict is recorded on the row rather than resolved. DATING: NONE EXISTS, AND THAT IS A POSITIVE FINDING RATHER THAN A GAP. No serial-to-year mapping was ever published for any Kodak of this era and there is no date code; Kodak's own catalogues print no serial anywhere. AA-13 records only two ceilings - the highest known serial on The Kodak as 5192 and on the No. 1 as 15,559 - and gives no serial note at all for any other model. A serial here establishes only that a camera falls below a known ceiling. What DOES date these cameras is Kodak's own vocabulary and hardware sequence: the body address marking ('Eastman Co. Rochester' runs 1889-1892) and the shutter succession, sector 1890 to Barker 1892 to Bausch & Lomb iris diaphragm 1893.

Fitted Lens

single lens with revolving stops, 6 in focus, rotating plate with three apertures

Rangefinder

No

Negative Size

3-1/2 x 4 in

Alternate Names

—

Introduced

1891