Vest Pocket Kodak Model B

Format

127

System

Kodak Vest Pocket

Shutter

Vest Pocket rotary, four stops

Metering

none

Spec Notes

Autographic, per AA-13's own parenthetical. THREE dimensions from the Vest Pocket Autographic Kodak: body architecture (scissor-strut self-erecting front gives way to a folding bed with a focusing rail), front standard (rectangular to circular), and shutter (Ball Bearing to the Vest Pocket rotary). Kodak's 1931 catalogue adds the Periscopic rung at $7.50 alongside the meniscus at $5.00. The rotary shutter's speeds are NOT SOURCED - Kodak prints only 'four stops, instantaneous and time actions'. 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

meniscus achromatic, later also Kodak Periscopic

Rangefinder

No

Fold Notes 9d

*** ABSORBS THE KODAK PETITE, AND CLOSES A SUSPECTED CATALOGUE GAP RATHER THAN OPENING A SLICE. *** A researcher flagged the Petite and the Coquette as possibly missing cameras. THEY ARE NOT. Kodak's 1930 index: 'KODAK PETITE. PAGE 30, IS SIMILAR IN EQUIPMENT TO V. P. K., MODEL B, WITH MENISCUS LENS', and page 30: 'in green, blue, gray, old rose or lavender - gay, iridescent colors, with jaunty little case to match. Equipped with Meniscus Lens, Rotary Shutter. Price, $7.50.' Museums Victoria records a Petite as 'Also known as the Vest Pocket Kodak Model B camera'. That is THIS camera's equipment exactly. ZERO DIMENSIONS - colour, bellows colour and a matching case, all excluded. TWO COSMETIC OUTFITS ALSO FOLD HERE AND NEITHER IS A CAMERA. The VANITY KODAK ENSEMBLE (1928-29, beige, gray and green) is this camera plus a lipstick, compact, mirror and change pocket in a fitted case, cosmetics by Richard Hudnut; AA-13 says so in its own line. The KODAK COQUETTE (1930) is the Petite plus a matching lipstick and compact in a geometric silver and black gift box. AN OUTFIT IS NEVER A ROW. Note these are two DIFFERENT sets three years apart on two different base cameras, which is why one source's attribution of the Petite to the Ensemble is a mix-up.

Alternate Names

—

Introduced

1925