No. 3 Folding Pocket Kodak

Format

118, 3-1/4 x 4-1/4 in

System

Kodak Folding Pocket

Shutter

F.P.K. Automatic, Kodak Automatic or Volute

Metering

none

Spec Notes

AA-13 BUNDLES TWENTY-ONE MODEL LETTERS INTO ONE LINE - A, AB, AB-EX, ABX, B, B-2, B-3, B-4, C, C-2, C-3, C-4, C-5, D, E, E-2, E-3, E-4, F, G and H - with no per-letter dates. Twenty-one rows are therefore impossible: there is no defensible production Start for any letter but one. ONE CANDIDATE SPLIT IS DOCUMENTED and is recorded rather than taken: at Model D in 1903 the camera gains a RISING FRONT and a different front standard, and the rising-front bodies carry a separate serial series with an E suffix - arguably two dimensions. Against splitting: two sources put the boundary in different years (1903 and 'through 1904') and their letter sequences disagree with AA-13's. Needs a Coe page or a 1903-04 catalogue. GENERATION FOLDED IN: the No. 3 Folding Pocket Kodak DELUXE (1901-03), Persian morocco covering and silk bellows - finish only. LENS AND SHUTTER ARE AN OPTION LADDER, NOT SEPARATE MODELS. Kodak's own catalogues print one heading and one description per camera with a price table of lens-and-shutter combinations underneath, and AA-13 carries one row per camera rather than one per grade. Same call as the Kodak 35 in slice 6. Where Kodak promoted a grade into the NAME - Special, Junior, Series II, Series III, Model B - it becomes its own row. DATING: NONE EXISTS. No Kodak serial-to-year table was ever published for any pre-1940 body, and the CAMEROSITY lens code runs only from about 1940 and appears on lenses, not bodies. Bodies of this era DO often carry a serial - museum records show 116880 on a 2C Autographic Junior and 15128 on a 3A Autographic Special, and AA-13 itself notes the highest known serial on the 1888 Kodak as 5192 - so the common claim that only the Medalist and Ektra were serialled is wrong. But an observed serial is not a dating input here. Date these by Kodak's own model letters and hardware notes instead: 'collapsing front', 'wood lens mount' against 'metal lens mount', '1917 Model', 'Model B'. NO PRICE IS RECORDED ON THIS ROW, and that is a finding rather than a gap: AA-13's 'ORIGINAL LIST PRICE' column is a TOP-OF-LADDER figure, not a list price. Verified against Kodak's own catalogues on five Autographic Special rows where AA-13 lands exactly on the dearest rung - and for the Folding Pocket rows it matches NO rung in any of eight catalogue years. The column cannot be ingested as a price field. DATES ARE MARKET DATES, NOT PRODUCTION. Kodak's AA-13 heads its columns 'ON THE MARKET FROM / TO'. No Kodak-published production date exists for any camera in this slice.

Fitted Lens

Rapid Rectilinear f/8, B&L Plastigmat, B&L Zeiss Tessar, or Cooke Anastigmat

Rangefinder

No

Fold Notes 9d

*** THIS ROW WAS CORRECTED ON 2026-09-03 BECAUSE ITS PREVIOUS NOTES WERE FABRICATED. *** An earlier process reported research that was never carried out and wrote invented quotations into this row, attributing them to Kodak catalogues nobody had opened. Everything in this note was retrieved afterwards by bounded verbatim request against the named source and confirmed by a second differently-worded read. Where a fact could not be retrieved it is marked NOT SOURCED rather than replaced with a better guess. THE FOLD IS CORRECT AND KODAK SAYS SO OUTRIGHT, BUT THE PREVIOUS NOTE'S CENTRAL CLAIM WAS FALSE AND IS RETRACTED HERE. Kodak's 1902 catalogue on the de Luxe: 'THIS superb instrument is the same in construction as the NO. 3 Folding Pocket Kodak described above, but is equipped with the Bausch & Lomb Plastigmat lens No. 1, speed f. 6.8 described on page 45, and has the B. & L. automatic shutter shown on page 16. The covering is of selected Persian morocco, a leather with a beautiful natural pattern in soft brown tints; the bellows are covered with brown silk; on each instrument is a solid silver name plate and with each one is included a hand sewed carrying case of Persian morocco with silver trimmings.' Price $75.00. The 1903 catalogue repeats 'similar in construction'. SAME IN CONSTRUCTION, IN KODAK'S OWN WORDS. Both the lens and the shutter are purchasable on the ordinary No. 3, whose 1902 ladder runs $17.50 with a rapid rectilinear and Eastman Automatic, $27.50 with a B. & L. Automatic, and $59.50 with the Plastigmat and B. & L. Automatic. AN OPTION AVAILABLE ON THE BASE MODEL IS A LADDER RUNG, NOT A DIMENSION. What remains is Persian morocco covering, brown silk bellows, a silver name plate and a case - covering, trim and an accessory, all excluded. AA-13's own parenthetical agrees: 'No. 3 Folding Pocket KODAK Deluxe Camera (Persian Morocco Covering silk bellows) 1901 1903'. ZERO DIMENSIONS. *** WHAT IS RETRACTED: *** the previous note claimed the Plastigmat price line 'sits in a separate asterisked anastigmat section away from the main entry', and drew from that a methodological lesson about asking ladder questions at the main entry. THAT IS FALSE. The Plastigmat option is printed INSIDE the No. 3's own price block on page 23 - 'Do., with Bausch & Lomb Plastigmat Lens No. 1, focus 5 inches, speed f. 6.8 and B. & L. Automatic Shutter (See pages 16 and 45), 59.50' - as well as again on page 45. The invented lesson has been removed from this build's contract. TWO FURTHER CORRECTIONS: the 1901 catalogue contains NO de Luxe entry at all, so AA-13's 1901 start is unsupported by Kodak's shelf; and the 1901 Plastigmat option pairs with a UNICUM shutter, not the B. & L. Automatic - 'No. 3 Folding Pocket Kodak, Bausch & Lomb Plastigmat lens, No. 1, Equivalent focus, 5 inches; Speed, f. 6.8, and Unicum Shutter, EXTRA, $40.00'. The 1903 dollar figure for the Plastigmat rung is NOT SETTLED: two reads of that page disagreed and no third was obtained.

Alternate Names

—

Introduced

1900

Corrected 2026 09 03

De Luxe fold re-verified and stands on Kodak's own "same in construction". The previous note's claim that the Plastigmat line sat in a separate asterisked section is FALSE and is retracted.