No. 1 Kodak Series III

Format

120 roll film

System

Kodak Series III

Shutter

Diomatic, 1/10 1/25 1/50 1/100 T B - the speed set confirmed on a physical specimen

Focusing

screw focusing device - "Adjustable; screw focusing device" (1927); "screw focusing device on Nos. 1 and 1A" (1931); confirmed on the specimen as "Screw focusing, to 6 feet"

Metering

none

Spec Notes

*** THIS ROW AND THE No. 3 SERIES III WERE ALMOST LOST. Both AA-13 lines were MIS-FILED in this build's backlog under a bucket labelled '1888-95 originals', which slice 9a closed - so they sat in a completed slice's bucket while their blockmates sat in another, and nothing would have picked them up. *** They were recovered because Kodak documents all four Series III sizes in TWO SHARED SPEC BLOCKS - the screw-focusing pair Nos. 1 and 1A, and the lever-focusing pair Nos. 2C and 3 - and a researcher reading the 1A's block could see its blockmate was missing. TWO DIMENSIONS AGAINST THE ALREADY-BUILT No. 1 Pocket Kodak Series II, and format is NOT one of them because both are 120: (1) FOCUSING MECHANISM - a named screw focusing device against the Series II's 'Fixed or adjustable' with no device named in any year; (2) LENS LADDER, DISJOINT - this camera offers ONLY the Anastigmat f/6.3 while the Series II offers Meniscus, Kodar f/7.9 and Anastigmat f/7.7, WITH NO SHARED RUNG IN ANY YEAR. THE SHUTTER IS NOT A DIMENSION and the research brief was wrong to count it: from 1927 the Series II carries the Diomatic itself with an IDENTICAL speed set, and the 1924-only Ball Bearing difference cannot apply here because this camera is ABSENT from the 1924 catalogue - asked directly, the only Series III heading there is 'Nos. 1A and 2C'. THIS IS THE ONLY SERIES III SIZE WITHOUT A RISING FRONT: Kodak prints 'Rising front on No. 1A' in 1927 and 'Rising front on Nos. 1A, 3 and 2C' in 1931. AA-13's 1932 end is supported - present 1927 and 1931, gone from the next volume. FILM ADVANCE IS NOT SOURCED: Kodak prints nothing about winding in these blocks. historiccamera was used for NOTHING load-bearing. Datasheet 696 was confirmed uncited this slice and its text is verbatim laundered AA-13; datasheets 580 and 567 likewise list no references at all. Sixth, seventh and eighth occurrences of the pattern. SOURCE-HANDLING: the WebFetch relay fabricates when led, proven five times in this build. Every reading behind this row was taken with neutral questions, an explicit 'or say not stated' escape hatch, control questions whose answer had to be NO, and a second ask in different wording. One relay bleed WAS caught in this slice - asked about the 1913 Six-Three page it returned 'rack and pinion' and 'rising and sliding fronts', both of which are printed on the SPECIAL pages two pages earlier. That read was discarded and the isolated re-read returned the correct answer. Values resting on VULGAR FRACTIONS are unreliable: these scans return different fractions on repeat reads of the same page. Every row-shape call in this slice was decided on prose, on a model name, on a shutter name, on a SPEED COUNT, on an integer or on a dollar figure. Where a catalogue fraction and a museum specimen disagree the specimen is preferred and the conflict is recorded. NO PRICE IS RECORDED. Where a figure decides a row shape it is quoted in these notes instead. DATES ARE MARKET DATES, NOT PRODUCTION - AA-13 heads its columns 'ON THE MARKET FROM / TO'. Where Kodak's own catalogue shelf contradicts AA-13 the conflict is recorded on the row and NOT resolved. DATING: NO SCHEME EXISTS. No serial-to-year mapping and no date code was ever published for any Kodak of this era. Specimen serials are recorded for provenance only and are NOT decodable - and note they are not even a consistent KIND of number: the four published Series III figures mix a camera body serial (No. 3 Series III, 20021), lens serials (No. 1 Series III, 9080; No. 3 Series III, 104717) and an autographic-back serial (13327). Four numbers across two models spanning three orders of magnitude. DO NOT BUILD A DECODER.

Fitted Lens

Kodak Anastigmat f/6.3 - the ONLY rung offered in any year. Focal length 100 mm from the Science Museum Group specimen; the catalogue figure is NOT used, because two reads returned 4-3/4 and 4-1/2 inches

Rangefinder

No

Negative Size

2-1/4 x 3-1/4 in

Alternate Names

—

Introduced

1926