No. 3A Autographic Kodak Special

Format

122, 3-1/4 x 5-1/2 in postcard

System

Kodak Autographic Special

Shutter

Compound

Metering

none

Spec Notes

THE PRE-RANGEFINDER 3A SPECIAL, and this split was tested hard because a rangefinder alone is one dimension and would fold. Kodak's own catalogues settle it - THREE things move in 1916, not one. 1915: 'Zeiss Kodak Anastigmat lens, f. 6.3, and COMPOUND shutter'. 1916: 'Bausch & Lomb Kodak Anastigmat lens f.6.3, and OPTIMO shutter. (Formerly listed as the Zeiss Kodak Anastigmat)'. So the shutter changes, the lens maker changes, and the coupled Kodak Range Finder arrives, all at once. Corroborated on a museum object: a 1916-24 Model B carries a Wollensak Optimo No. 1A. Two rows. 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

Zeiss Kodak Anastigmat f/6.3

Rangefinder

No

Alternate Names

—

Introduced

1914