No. 1 Kodak

Format

factory-loaded roll film, 100 exposures

System

Kodak Original

Shutter

rotating barrel shutter, string-set (1888); sector shutter, string-cocked (1889 on)

Focusing

fixed

Metering

none

Spec Notes

*** THE MOST FAMOUS CAMERA IN THE CATALOGUE IS FOLDED, AND THIS IS THE CONTESTED CALL OF THE SLICE. *** The research brief split 'The Kodak' from the No. 1 on shutter plus body and flagged it as its weakest call; the adversarial pass killed the body leg with a fraction-independent integer and it was then verified directly against Kodak's 1890 catalogue. Kodak prints the No. 1 at '73 cubic inches' - against roughly 79 for a Smithsonian Original and 90 for a Smithsonian No. 1, so the museum pair has the camera GROWING where Kodak's own figure has it SHRINKING. The Smithsonian's two Originals differ from EACH OTHER by 5mm of length and 2mm of width, which is dimension drift in a hand-built wooden box rather than a design change. That leaves the shutter, one dimension, and one dimension folds. Kodak settles the intent in the No. 1's own entry: 'This is the original Kodak and it will always continue to be the Note Book of Photography.' Neither the 1889 nor the 1890 catalogue lists The Kodak as a model distinct from the No. 1. REVERSIBLE ON ONE THING: the round picture diameter, which Kodak gives as 2-1/2 in (1889) and 2-3/8 in (1894 price table) while both Smithsonian records give 2-5/8 in. If the diameter genuinely changed that is FORMAT and the split survives on two dimensions - but all three figures are vulgar fractions, the corrupt class, so the row is built folded and flagged. NO PRODUCTION FIGURE EXISTS: the circulating 'about 5,000 original Kodaks' is AA-13's highest-known-serial of 5192 rounded and restated by uncited enthusiast pages, and 5192 is confirmed on a real camera in a Leitz auction record. Kodak's 1888 catalogue prices it at $25.00 loaded with 100 exposures, with reloading, developing and printing at $10.00 - the camera itself went back to Rochester. Capacity rises to 150 exposures by the 1894 catalogue. NEGATIVE SIZE OMITTED - see the diameter conflict above. A DIMENSION IS DELIBERATELY ABSENT HERE. Kodak's catalogue scans corrupt vulgar fractions specifically: repeat reads of the same page return different fractions while prose, model names, shutter names, dollar figures and INTEGER measurements stay stable. Where Kodak's own years disagree with each other the value is omitted rather than picked. Integers are trusted - the 1890 volume gives cubic-inch figures reliably in the same sentence whose fraction reads as the impossible '2 3/2 inches in diameter'. 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

Rapid Rectilinear, fixed focus, fixed stop

Rangefinder

No

Alternate Names

—

Introduced

1888