Tony Kemplen on the …
A camera made in Germany in the early 1950s and discovered at a charity shop
The days of finding interesting cameras in charity shops seem to have faded away, so it was a few years ago that I spotted this one. In an inexplicable, yet surprisingly common way, the camera was displayed in its closed case behind glass, with the price label invisible. Maybe it’s a deliberate policy to discourage all but the most determined purchasers, as it means you have to ask for the item to be removed from the case to be identified and priced.
Opening the case revealed it to be a Leidolf Lordomat priced at £9.99. Seasoned charity shop browsers will probably spot that this was a branch of Oxfam, who steadfastly stick to the £n.99p price format, a practice which most other shops seem to have abandoned.
This is a camera that I hadn’t previously been aware of. Its most noticeable feature was a nasty dent on the top, presumably the result of a previous owner having dropped it. This damage would mean the camera is of little interest to serious collectors, but it had the look of quality about it.
It seemed to be in working order, so I decided £10 was a fair price. In common, I suspect, with other Oxfam customers, I deposited the orphan penny in the collection box on the counter. When I got home, I consulted my McKeown’s, one of the holy books of camera collecting, and learned that although Leidolf only made cameras for 13 years, the firm managed to come up with more than 30 different models. The first few used 127 rollfilm, but the rest were for 35mm.
It was made in Germany in the early 1950s, has a coupled rangefinder and takes interchangeable lenses. This one has the standard 50mm f/2.8 Lordonar with it, and there were also 35mm, 90mm and 135mm lenses, though they don’t seem to have been made in large numbers. The lens mount is unique to Leidolf, b
