Graflex.org

Dan Fromm · Joined: 14 May 2001 Posts: 2144 Location: New Jersey

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3801143631&category=15247

Not mine, I have no financial interest in it. Cute, eh?

Cheers,

Dan

t.r.sanford · Posted: Tue Mar 02, 2004 4:35 pm Post subject:

"Mentor" cameras, mostly large SLRs, seem to have been around since Hector was a pup. My father knew of them from the pre-WWII years, and I think Goltz & Breutmann began manufacturing them before WWI. According to brief references I've found, they were the European counterpart of Graflex. For a'that, "Mentors" don't seem to show up often on these shores, and I cannot find that they have attracted much attention. I wonder why?

Dan Fromm · Joined: 14 May 2001 Posts: 2144 Location: New Jersey

t.r.sanford · Posted: Tue Mar 02, 2004 7:45 pm Post subject:

In my youth, the great English large-format SLRs from Adams, Marion and Thornton Pickard were not forgotten, though the memory was fading. They were prized for their superb workmanship, but I have the impression that none was manufactured in great quantity, though some were available for a long time. Discussions of them often included passing reference to the "Mentors," but little detail.

I'm sure you're right about the line falling afoul of the Iron Curtain. Indeed, 35mm. cameras and lenses could get through (more easily to Western Europe than to these shores, except for the "Exakta" and "Praktica" lines). But even the 2¼x2¼ SLRs were hard to find, and large-format gear was virtually unknown, at least in the stores where I hung out.