1935 Voigtlander 6x6 Superb TLR. CLA’d, Freshly Serviced!

Cleaned, Lubricated & Adjusted. Ready for immediate use

This is a 1935 Voigtlander Superb twin lens reflex camera. It’s a very desirable and rather rare camera since they were only produced by Voigtlandr for a couple of years. Introduced the same year as the legendary Voigtlander Prominent 6x9 rangefinder camera. This Superb TLR camera shares many of the goals, philosophy and manufacturing techniques displayed in the Prominent. With the Superb TLR, Voigtlander explored serious alternative designs for the 6x6 Rolleiflex and then went out and created this heavy-duty Über Kamera.

The body of this camera is die-cast alloy which is stronger than the Rolleiflex and unlike its competition, the film is transported horizontally, rather than vertically. This approach allowed the designers to incorporate two stylized bulges which house the film spools, and to install two doors which open left and right. The result is a very unique design that’s easy to load due to the two doors that open left and right. And in case you’re wondering, it uses normal 120 roll-film.

Another unique feature is that the top lens moves forward and down when the camera is close focused, to adjust for viewfinder parallax. The viewfinder image is clean and bright, thanks to a brand-new surface coated mirror that replaced the old tarnished one that was in there.

Yet another oddity of this camera is that the shutter speed dial is engraved in reverse. This was done so that the numbers on the ring would appear correctly when viewed from above through a small, hinged prism. These prisms were rather fragile and are often missing now-a-days. However this camera still has its original prism, which although it has a minor chip in it it’s fully functional and the shutter speeds are easy to read.  

This lovely camera is in excellent condition and fully functional. It’s been carefully cleaned, lubricated and adjusted. The Compur shutter works very nicely and all speeds (1 Sec-1/250^th) are appropriate. The slow speeds buzz along nicely and the faster ones are clean and snappy. Unusual for the era, it has a flash sync connector. Normally these are set up for flash bulbs but we’ve adjusted and tested it and it now works with a normal electronic flash. The flash will fire correctly at any desired shutter speed. (This is of course very convenient for fill flash.)

The Voigtlander Skopar 3.5/7,5 cm (75mm) lens is in excellent condition. (It’s a classic design with four elements in three groups and its design and performance is virtually identical to the outstanding Zeiss Tessar.) The lens is in excellent condition. It’s clean and clear with just some minor cleaning wisks and it’s capable of producing very lovely photos with modern color and B&W films.

All in all, a unique vintage camera for your collection. Wonderful to look at and a real treat to use if you are so inclined.