Coronet 44

Another pleasant surprise "thrown in" with another purchase.  This is a rather nice box camera that shoots 12 4x4 frames on 127 film. This one was loaded with a mystery film when it arrived that was half-way through being shot. Not knowing what the film was I simply took some garden shots and then loaded the film in the developing tank. I looked at its backing paper for the big reveal, and it turned out to be Ilford Selochrome Panchromatic film. This film went out of production around the late 1960s. It seems this camera had not been used for about 60 years!

Predictably the developed film was severely fogged, but we did get some images out of it, so I can now happily say I've shot Ilford Selochrome Panchromatic.

Now, what about the camera? Well, good luck finding any hard facts about it online! Apparently it dates from "the 50s", it has "a single shutter speed" and "a single element lens". Aperture unknown. Bit vague.

I don't know why so little is known about this camera. I like the style of it. It has a bakelite body  and a neat feature that lets you lock the shutter in against the body to prevent unintentional exposures.

Our own measurements give approximately: a focal length of 65mm, an aperture of f/16 and a shutter speed of 1/40.

Shot on the expired Ilford Selochrome Panchromatic film