German Camera Heidoscop 4, 1931

Amazing Heidoscop 4 stereo camera for 6x13 plaques made in Germany in 1931. This camera boasts a wonderful condition and is in working order thought it has not been tested with glass plates. It is a highly interesting item for any collector as it is a Reflex camera, one of the first of this kind ever launched. It is designed to print images on 6x13 glass plates. The camera keeps all its original component parts: all the lenses and appliances work fine. The reflex viewfinder shows a few dust particles inside but this feature is not really important. Otherwise the camera is in an almost impeccable condition. At the front of the camera, just under the lenses and the viewfinder we can see the models name, Heidoscop, printed in an elegant cursive lettering. The Heidoscope was the first camera manufactured by Franke & Heideke, an optic material manufacturing firm located in Braunschweig, Germany. The company was founded in 1920 by Paul Franke and Reinhold Heidecke; after some years it changed its name for Rollei-Werke. This firm was responsible for the launching of the Rolleiflex and Rolleirecord camera series. The design of the Heidoscop is clearly inspired in Voigtländers Stereflektosko, launched in 1914. The camera has a pair of lenses with the reflex viewfinder between them. One of the lenses is a Tessar f=4,5 and the other is a Carl Zeiss Jenna f=7,5. The Tessar lens is bears the printed serial number 1249003 and the Zeiss Jenna is number 1339671. Between both lenses we can see the reflex viewfinder, located at the center of the camera. Over it we can see the cameras serial number: Nº 123813. This item comes with the original plate charger and keeps the protecting caps for the lenses and the viewfinder too. Because of its high quality, its originality and its ancient age, this Heidoscop camera is a real collectors item that will delight every lover of antique photographs.