No. 3 Special Kodak

Format

118 roll film

System

Kodak Special

Shutter

Compound

Focusing

rack and pinion

Metering

none

Spec Notes

Splits from the No. 3A on FORMAT - see that row for the family argument. THE FOCAL LENGTH EARNS NOTHING AND IS NOT EVEN CONSISTENT WITH THE FORMAT STORY: this camera and the No. 1A BOTH carry a 5 inch lens on different film sizes, so focal length neither tracks format nor separates the sizes. The one extra fact Kodak prints is that 'The 3 and 3A sizes will take plates by addition of a combination back', which separates this size and the 3A from the 1A but does not separate the two of them. AA-13'S 1911 START IS CONFIRMED: this size is ABSENT from the 1910 catalogue and present from 1911. AN OPTION LADDER IS NOT A DIMENSION. This build has now ruled so four times, and in this slice that rule DELETED A ROW - see the No. 3 Folding Pocket Kodak's de Luxe note. 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

Zeiss Kodak Anastigmat f/6.3, 5 in focus, standard; Cooke Series IIIa and B. & L. Zeiss Tessar Series IIb also offered

Rangefinder

No

Alternate Names

—

Introduced

1911