No. 2 Kodak

Format

factory-loaded roll film, 100 exposures

System

Kodak Original

Shutter

sector, string-cocked, time and instantaneous, rotating plate with three apertures

Focusing

fixed universal

Metering

none

Spec Notes

Three dimensions from the No. 1 - format, lens and body. The body figure is the decisive one and it is an integer: Kodak's 1890 catalogue gives the No. 2 as '202 cubic inches' against the No. 1's '73'. The FIRST of these cameras to carry a finder. The three stops are the only stated f-series found anywhere in this slice; the 1893 UK catalogue prints F11, F14 and F32. A capacity conflict that resolves rather than persists: the 1890 catalogue prices it 'loaded with 60 exposures' and notes 'the camera will take a spool of 100 exposures', so 100 is the capacity and 60 the standard shipped load. One dissenting secondary gives the circle as 3-1/4 in against Kodak's own 3-1/2 in, recorded and not adopted. 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

Bausch & Lomb Universal, 3-1/8 in focus, fixed focus, three stops (F11, F14, F32)

Rangefinder

No

Negative Size

3-1/2 in diameter, circular

Alternate Names

—

Introduced

1889