No. 2 Bulls-Eye Kodak

Format

101 daylight cartridge, 12 to 18 exposures - NO plate option

System

Kodak Bulls-Eye

Shutter

Eastman improved rotary, snapshot and time

Focusing

fixed

Metering

none

Spec Notes

THE LONGEST-LIVED CAMERA IN THE SLICE - eighteen years on the market. PLATES ARE NEVER MENTIONED IN ANY BULLS-EYE SECTION IN ANY YEAR, and that absence is the first of the two dimensions separating this line from the Bullet; the second is the box itself, which Kodak's 1898 catalogue shows to be smaller in two axes at the No. 4 size. The line originates OUTSIDE Kodak: Samuel Turner's Boston Camera Manufacturing Company introduced the No. 2 Bulls-Eye in 1892 and sold the patents, trade marks and business to George Eastman on 23 August 1895; Kodak's Bullet was a licensed copy paying a fee on the red-window patent, so the two designs met inside Kodak within weeks. A MUSEUM RECORD THAT MUST NOT BE CITED HERE: SMG 1950-178, titled 'Kodak No 2 Bulls-eye Camera', describes a FOLDING camera - it is a No. 2 Folding Bulls-Eye catalogued under the box's name. THE FILM NUMBER IS NOT KODAK'S OWN. Kodak names no film number for these cameras in any catalogue of the period - it prints only 'N. C. Film Cartridge, 12 exposures'. The numbers 101, 102, 103 and 124 reach this catalogue from AA-13 and from museum records, and are recorded as attributions rather than as Kodak designations. Values resting on VULGAR FRACTIONS are treated as unreliable throughout: these scans return different fractions on repeat reads of the same page while prose, model names, shutter names, dollar figures and INTEGERS stay stable. Every row-shape call in this slice was decided on an integer, on prose, or on a dollar figure. NO PRICE IS RECORDED. AA-13's price column is not a list price; 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 presence contradicts AA-13 the conflict is recorded on the row and NOT resolved. DATING: NONE EXISTS. No serial-to-year mapping and no date code was ever published for any Kodak of this era, and Kodak's catalogues print no serial anywhere. Kodak DID stamp model letters inside some bodies - The Henry Ford transcribes 'IN ORDERING SUPPLIES FOR THIS CAMERA ALWAYS SPECIFY FOR NO. 2 BULL'S-EYE, MODEL D' - but a supply-ordering label is a marking, not a dating scheme.

Fitted Lens

meniscus achromatic, fixed 4-3/4 in focus, set of three stops

Rangefinder

No

Negative Size

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

Alternate Names

—

Introduced

1895