Nagel
1931 Nagel Vollenda, German folding camera. Freshly Serviced!
Cleaned, Lubricated & Adjusted. Ready for immediate use
Forget the socks... What he really wants is a vintage camera.
This little camera is a Nagel Vollenda. It was built at the Nagel factory, which was eventually purchase by Kodak in the beginning of the 1930’s in order to gain a foothold in the European market. The Nagel Camera Company always enjoyed a fine reputation for it quality products. This quality was evident in these finely crafted prewar Kodak Retinas. This was largely due to the founder Dr. Nagel, designed and ran the business together with his skilled and motivated workforce.
The Nagel Vollenda was only produced briefly between 1931 to 1932 making it one of the most difficult Nagels to find. If you collect Nagel cameras or the Nagel Retinas you know what I mean.
The Nagel Vollenda produces 3x4 cm exposures on 127 roll film. By the way in case you’re wondering, 127 film is still available from specialty film firms on the internet. The 127 format is still quite popular among collectors who actually use their vintage cameras because of the very compact size of the cameras and the generous negative size of the film. In fact many photographers of the 1930’s preferred these cameras above early 35mm cameras for precisely this reason. The larger 3x4 cm negatives produced a superior image when enlarged.
This camera has an attractive patina. So if you like cameras that look like they’ve experienced life, rather than simply passing through it, I feel you’ll be very happy with it. It’s been carefully cleaned, lubricated and adjusted
and it works as it should. The bellows are supple and completely light tight. The quality Compur shutter works smoothly and all speeds (B & 1 sec - 1/300th) are appropriate. The slow speeds buzz along smoothly and the faster ones are clean and snappy. and all speeds are appropriate.
The lens is a 3.5/50mm Schneider Radionar, it’s based on the classic Cooke triplet and has three lens elements in three groups. The Radionar lens is well known for its lovely rendering and bokeh. It produces lovely photos with smooth, attractive backgrounds and this lens is very popular in Europe. The glass is very clean, however there are numerous fine cleaning marks. It’s capable of producing nice photos but as with all prewar lenses, we recommend keeping the sun behind you for best performance.
All in all an attractive, unusual vintage camera. A nice holiday stocking stuffer and fun to use, if you’re so inclined.
