No. 3 Eastman Plate Camera

Format

glass plates

System

Eastman Plate Camera

Shutter

Unicum

Focusing

rack and pinion with extra extension; a ground glass focusing screen behind a flap released by a metal catch on the reverse

Metering

none

Spec Notes

*** THE BRAND IS KODAK, NOT EASTMAN, AND THE RESEARCH BRIEF'S RECOMMENDATION TO THE CONTRARY IS OVERTURNED. *** The brief read the National Trust object's markings - handle stamped 'No.3 Eastman Plate Camera Series D. Eastman Kodak Co. Rochester, NY, USA' - and concluded the marque is EASTMAN. Kodak's own catalogues refute it: they are full of 'Eastman' headings and EVERY ONE IS A NON-CAMERA GOOD - Eastman Rotary Shutter, Eastman Automatic Shutter, Eastman Triple Action Shutter, Eastman Folding Head Tripod, Eastman Feather Tripod, Eastman's Sepia Paper, Eastman's Permanent Bromide Papers. 'Eastman Plate Camera' is the SAME CONSTRUCTION as 'Eastman Automatic Shutter': the house prefix for goods not badged Kodak, not a separate marque - and this build already accepts 'Eastman Automatic Shutter' as a Kodak shutter without proposing an EASTMAN shutter brand. The engraving rule is satisfied by reading the object correctly: the PRODUCT name is 'Eastman Plate Camera' and the MAKER line on that same object says 'Eastman Kodak Co.' Branding these EASTMAN would make them the only non-Kodak, non-lens-maker brand string in the build, on a handle stamp, and hide them from everyone searching Kodak. SMG catalogues this very camera as 'Kodak No 3 plate camera Series C', maker Kodak. 'Eastman' is recorded here as a known marking and search alias. *** SERIES C AND D FOLD ON ONE DIMENSION, AND ASSIGNABILITY COLLAPSES OUTRIGHT. *** Across four physical specimens the two series carry the SAME lens, SAME shutter, SAME rack-and-pinion focusing, SAME movements and SAME finder; only bellows travel differs, and the MECHANISM is identical, so under this build's rule - focusing counts when the mechanism changes - it is one dimension. THE FINDING THAT ENDS THE ARGUMENT: SMG co16509 is ONE PHYSICAL CAMERA MARKED BOTH WAYS - its description reads 'No. 3 Eastman plate camera series C; (back says series D)'. This reproduced on a re-fetch in different wording. The museum dates are incoherent besides. *** NO T1 EVIDENCE EXISTS FOR THIS BLOCK AND CONFIDENCE IS MEDIUM FOR THAT REASON. *** Six Kodak catalogue years were searched - 1900, 1901, 1902, 1903, 1904, 1905, two more than the research brief - for 'Eastman Plate Camera', 'Series C', 'Series D', 'Plate Camera' and 'professional'. ABSENT FROM ALL SIX. Every 'Plate' heading in those volumes is an accessory or an option on a roll-film body. Pacific Rim's own front matter says professional and specialty catalogues were digitised separately and that some cameras appear only there; no such volume could be located. THAT IS 'COULD NOT RETRIEVE', NOT 'NOT FOUND'. historiccamera datasheets were used for NOTHING load-bearing here. 683 and 684 reproduce AA-13's exact dates, its exact wood-front/metal-front pair and its focusing lock, and cite nothing; 673 and 597 cite nothing either. A laundered copy of the source it appears to corroborate is not corroboration. SOURCE-HANDLING NOTE FOR THIS SLICE: the WebFetch relay was caught FABRICATING WHEN LED - four times independently, once inventing 'a dial to select the SHUTTER SPEED' to complete a page truncated at 'the only one to have a d', where the real next sentence says the earlier models had a SLIDER to set the FOCUSING DISTANCE. 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. Values resting on VULGAR FRACTIONS are treated as unreliable: 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, and in this slice the gap is measurable: AA-13 and Kodak's own catalogues agree to the cent for the Panorams ($10.00/$20.00/$40.00), the 3B Quick Focus ($12.00) and the No. 2 Stereo ($15.00), and disagree by a factor of two to three for the Cartridge Kodaks and the No. 4A Folding Kodak. 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. Specimen serials are recorded where a museum photographed one, for provenance only and NOT decodable: No. 4 Panoram Model C 10368 and Model D 12238; No. 4 Screen Focus 2274; 3B Quick Focus 4763K, 9066K and 7899K; Stereo Kodak Model 1 LENS numbers 52570 and 53277; No. 4 Series C Eastman Plate Camera 792. The trailing K on the Quick Focus serials is NOT SOURCED - no decode exists in anything reachable.

Fitted Lens

Bausch & Lomb Rapid Rectilinear

Rangefinder

No

Negative Size

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

Alternate Names

—

Introduced

1901