No. 6 Folding Kodak

Format

roll film via Eastman-Walker roll holder, or glass plates

System

Kodak Folding

Shutter

Bausch & Lomb Iris Diaphragm, pneumatic release

Focusing

ground glass, double swing back and sliding front

Metering

none

Spec Notes

*** ONE DIMENSION, AND THE ROW IS KEPT ANYWAY - THE THIN JUSTIFICATION IS STATED RATHER THAN PADDED. *** The first brief made an exchangeable stereo lens panel the differentiator; the No. 5 takes the same stereo lenses at the same $14.00, so that leg is retracted. Kodak's own words are that the No. 6 is 'Identical to Improved No. 5 Folding except in size' (1895) and 'an exact duplicate of the NO.5 Folding Kodak, except in size' (1893 UK) - so format is the whole of it. A 6-1/2 x 8-1/2 in camera is not a variant of anything, which is why it stands. ITS LENS AND SHUTTER ARE INFERRED FROM KODAK'S OWN EQUIVALENCE STATEMENT rather than observed on an object, and no museum holds one - about 152 were made, which is why. That figure comes from one author's reading of Kodak's Production Order Book and stays an attribution; Kodak's catalogues carry no production figures at all. Present in the 1893, 1894 and 1895 volumes and absent from 1896 and 1897, which confirms AA-13's span. THE No. 6 GLASS PLATE FOLDING KODAK HAS NOTHING SOURCED AT ANY TIER - its historiccamera datasheet is an empty stub - and it folds here, so no row asserts anything about it. THE GLASS PLATE MODEL IS A BACK, NOT A CAMERA, AND FOLDS INTO THIS ROW AT ZERO DIMENSIONS. Kodak heads the section 'Glass Plate Kodaks without roll holder for films' - defining the product by what has been TAKEN OUT - and sells the plate capability as a priced accessory under its own heading, 'GLASS PLATE ATTACHMENT', at $4.00 for the Ordinary style and $5.00 for the Daylight. A surviving Ordinary C carries both backs with the body and the roll-film back sharing serial 2029. The 'spring ground glass frame' is a FOCUSING SCREEN, excluded by name from the dimension list. AA-13 lists and prices these separately because AA-13 catalogues PRODUCTS KODAK SOLD, not CAMERAS KODAK BUILT. NO PRICE IS RECORDED ON THIS ROW. AA-13's 'ORIGINAL LIST PRICE' column is not a list price - established in slice 7 and sharpened in slice 8. In this era Kodak's own catalogues give the real figures anyway, and where they matter to a row-shape decision they are quoted in these notes instead of stored as data. DATES ARE MARKET DATES, NOT PRODUCTION. AA-13 heads its columns 'ON THE MARKET FROM / TO'. Where Kodak's own catalogues place a model outside AA-13's span the conflict is recorded on the row rather than resolved. DATING: NONE EXISTS, AND THAT IS A POSITIVE FINDING RATHER THAN A GAP. No serial-to-year mapping was ever published for any Kodak of this era and there is no date code; Kodak's own catalogues print no serial anywhere. AA-13 records only two ceilings - the highest known serial on The Kodak as 5192 and on the No. 1 as 15,559 - and gives no serial note at all for any other model. A serial here establishes only that a camera falls below a known ceiling. What DOES date these cameras is Kodak's own vocabulary and hardware sequence: the body address marking ('Eastman Co. Rochester' runs 1889-1892) and the shutter succession, sector 1890 to Barker 1892 to Bausch & Lomb iris diaphragm 1893.

Fitted Lens

Bausch & Lomb Universal, instantly removable; wide angle and stereoscopic lenses offered

Rangefinder

No

Negative Size

6-1/2 x 8-1/2 in

Alternate Names

—

Introduced

1893