No. 3A Special Kodak

Format

122 roll film

System

Kodak Special

Shutter

Compound

Focusing

rack and pinion

Metering

none

Spec Notes

*** THE FIRST OF THE SPECIAL KODAKS, AND THE ROW THIS FAMILY IS ANCHORED ON. *** The Special Kodak is NOT a lens grade of the ordinary Folding Pocket Kodak - it is a differently built body. Kodak, 1911, of the No. 3 Special: 'It has rising, falling and sliding front, reversible finder, spirit level, and a rack and pinion for focusing.' The ordinary model of the same size carries an AUTOMATIC FOCUSING LOCK and no front movement; Kodak's own February 1913 factory booklet for the R.R. Type describes the baseline exactly - 'the automatic locking device on the left side of the camera bed, the front locks automatically at 6, 10, 25 or 100 feet focus' - with no geared focusing, no levelling device and no front movement. THE BODY DIMENSION IS REDUCED FROM WHAT THE RESEARCH BRIEF CLAIMED AND SURVIVES ANYWAY: a spirit level is a FITTING and a reversible finder is a viewfinder TYPE, both excluded - and the reversible finder is not even a difference, since the ordinary R.R. Type's spec block also reads 'Brilliant reversible finder'. What is left is the RISING, FALLING AND SLIDING FRONT, which is genuine movement hardware. So Special versus ordinary is FOCUSING MECHANISM plus FRONT MOVEMENTS. AA-13'S 1910 START IS CONFIRMED ON KODAK'S SHELF - this size is present in the 1910 catalogue and the No. 3 size is not, which independently corroborates AA-13's later 1911 start for that one. 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, 6-1/2 in focus, standard. A LADDER, not a fixture: Kodak also offered a Cooke Series IIIa and a B. & L. Zeiss Tessar Series IIb in the same shutter

Rangefinder

No

Alternate Names

—

Introduced

1910