1938 Welta Weltix 35mm camera CLA'd, Freshly Serviced!

Cleaned, Lubricated & Adjusted. Ready for immediate use!

If you’ve seen our auctions before you’ll know that we service and sell prewar Contax rangefinders, Ikontas, Super Ikontas and other classic cameras. I love using these cameras but as a collector I’m also interested obscure brands and models as well. Frankly, classic cameras don’t always need to cost a small fortune to be enjoyable. There are some modestly priced collectables that will deliver interesting results and a lot of fun.

With this in mind let me introduce you to this 35mm camera produced in Germany just prior to WWII by Welta Kamera-Werke. Before the war, Welta was well respected and its cameras competed on equal footing with Zeiss-Ikon and Voigtlander. Along with Leica, Contax and Kodak, Welta helped spread the popularity of the then new 35mm format, which was then considered a miniature format by both the Germans and the Americans. In fact if you read old hard-boiled detective novels like those written by Raymond Chandler, you’ll occasionally see 35mm cameras referred to as “miniature cameras”. Which they certainly were, especially compared to the 4x5 plate cameras that were in common use at the time.

This camera has been carefully cleaned, lubricated and adjusted.  The bellows are supple and completely light tight. The Compur shutter was one of the finest shutter of its era. It 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 in case you were wondering, it uses normal 35mm film.

The f2.9/5cm (50mm) Steinheil Munchen Cassar lens is a classic three element design based on the classic Cooke triplet. It’s a popular design because of the lovely sharpness, rendering and bokeh. The lens serial number, 429790, indicates that it was produced in Germany in 1938. There lens is clean and clear, there are no scratches and it’s capable of producing lovely photos with modern color and B&W films.

All in all, an excellent, a very enjoyable vintage camera at an affordable price that’s been waiting 85 years for you to load film into it and take it out into your world.