Discontinued
Kfilm camera
Kodak Bantam Special
Format
828, 28x40 mm
System
Kodak Bantam
Is Film
Yes
Shutter
Compur-Rapid 1 to 1/500 (1936-40), later Supermatic 1 to 1/400 (1941-48)
Metering
none
Research
Kodak AA-13; Kodak Bantam Special sales brochure form 7131 (PRC 01647); Kodak 1937 gift-line catalogue form 10.37 (PRC 03642); Kodak 1941 product catalogue (PRC 00167); Kodak Bantam, Bantam Special and Flash Bantam instruction books (cameramanuals.org); Pacific Rim dealer inventory transcribing engraved lens names.
Produced 1936–1948https://www.pacificrimcamera.com/rl/01541/01541.pdfMARKET DATES from Kodak Customer Service Pamphlet AA-13, whose columns are headed 'ON THE MARKET FROM / TO' - NOT production dates, and no Kodak-published production date exists for this camera. See gear_items.kodak-bantam-special spec_notes for the sourcing and any conflict.
Category: Film Camera
Format
828, 28x40 mm
System
Kodak Bantam
Shutter
Compur-Rapid 1 to 1/500 (1936-40), later Supermatic 1 to 1/400 (1941-48)
Metering
none
Spec Notes
The art-deco Bantam, and the best-documented camera in this slice: Kodak's brochure form 7131 publishes the lens as 'Kodak Anastigmat EKTAR f.2.0 (45 mm.)' and calls it SIX-ELEMENT - a rare published element count - along with a coupled rangefinder 'coupled with the focusing mechanism' and, uniquely in this slice, A GENUINELY PUBLISHED WEIGHT AND SIZE: 16 oz, 4-3/8 x 3-3/8 x 1-1/8 in. Groups NOT SOURCED. Kodak's own two documents disagree on price - $87.50 in form 7131 against $110 in the 1937 gift-line catalogue - so neither is recorded as the price. *** THE TWO GENERATIONS ARE FOLDED, AND THIS IS A CONTESTED CALL WORTH REVISITING ***: 1936-40 examples carry a Compur-Rapid and an 'Anastigmat Ektar' engraving, 1941-48 examples a Supermatic and a plain 'Ektar' engraving with coated inner glass-air surfaces. The adversarial pass counted that as TWO dimensions - shutter plus coating - and would have split them. It is folded here because COATING IS NOT ONE OF THIS CATALOGUE'S HARDWARE DIMENSIONS and the optical design is unchanged at 45mm f/2 six elements, leaving the shutter as the single dimension; the engraving change is Kodak's pre-1942 house-wide drop of 'Anastigmat' from Ektar, which is nominal. If a later reading admits coating as a dimension, this row splits into two. DATING: the fitted lens carries Kodak's CAMEROSITY two-letter year prefix on its serial (C=1 A=2 M=3 E=4 R=5 O=6 S=7 I=8 T=9 Y=0), stamped on the ring securing the front group. This gives the LENS year, not the body's, and a swapped lens dates the wrong object - a documented hazard, one collector owning a Medalist I wearing a Medalist II lens. DATES ARE MARKET DATES, NOT PRODUCTION. Kodak's own AA-13 heads its columns 'ON THE MARKET FROM / TO', and no Kodak-published production date exists for any camera in this slice - every third-party 'production years' figure checked is a restatement of AA-13.
Fitted Lens
Kodak Anastigmat Ektar 45mm f/2, six elements; later engraved Kodak Ektar f/2, coated
Rangefinder
Yes
Alternate Names
—
Introduced
1936
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