Six-Three Kodak No. 1A

Format

116 roll film

System

Kodak Six-Three

Shutter

Compound, standard

Focusing

automatic focusing lock - the regular Folding Pocket Kodak mechanism, NOT the Special's rack and pinion

Metering

none

Spec Notes

*** KODAK STATES WHAT THIS CAMERA IS, IN ITS OWN WORDS, AND IT IS NOT THE SPECIAL: *** 'Starting with the regular Kodak models, in the standard sizes, as a basis, we have simply replaced the R. R. lens and Ball Bearing shutter with the Compound shutter and a new anastigmat lens, called the Cooke Kodak Anastigmat.' The REGULAR model is the basis, not the Special. The 1913 Six-Three section carries NO SPEC BLOCK OF ITS OWN, saying instead 'For details on any Six-Three Kodak, it is necessary to merely refer to the detailed specifications of the regular models' - which points at a different body from the Special's. SO THIS ROW SPLITS FROM THE SPECIAL KODAK OF THE SAME SIZE ON LENS, FOCUSING MECHANISM AND FRONT MOVEMENTS, and from the regular R.R. Type on LENS AND SHUTTER. THE OPTION-LADDER ATTACK WAS RUN AND FAILED: the Special's own ladder is Zeiss Kodak Anastigmat f/6.3 at $50.00, Cooke Series IIIa at $63.00 and B. & L. Zeiss Tessar Series IIb at $62.50, and the Cooke KODAK Anastigmat is on none of those rungs; the regular 1A's 1913 price list has only two rungs, both R.R., with no anastigmat line at all. Special and Six-Three are printed as SEPARATE SECTIONS WITH SEPARATE PRICE LISTS in both 1913 (pages 24-25 and 26) and 1914 (pages 26-29 and 30), so a rename is ruled out - a rename cannot appear twice in one catalogue. *** CONFIDENCE IS MEDIUM AND THE REASON IS RECORDED HONESTLY: *** the regular R.R. Type's Zeiss-anastigmat-plus-Compound rung at $46.30 was DELETED in 1913, the same year the Six-Three appeared at $38.00. A stricter reader could call this row that equipment level re-badged with a different lens brand - one dimension - which would fold all three Six-Three rows. It is built as a row because Kodak gave it its own name, its own page, its own price list and made the Compound standard rather than optional, but the counter-argument is real and is written here rather than hidden. AA-13'S 1915 END IS NOT CORROBORATED: the 1915 catalogue carries neither the Six-Three nor any non-Autographic Special - it is already an all-Autographic book. Treat 1915 as availability, not listing. 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

Cooke Kodak Anastigmat f/6.3 - the ONLY lens offered, and not a rung on the Special Kodak's ladder, whose Cooke is a different lens (Series IIIa)

Rangefinder

No

Alternate Names

—

Introduced

1913