I am a collector of many things, photos is one of them. If I see something interesting, I'll snap a few quick photos and add them to my collection. I took about 7,000 photos in 2007, and I'm up to about 6,000 for 2008 so far. I make an annual physical photo book to give out to friends and family, but I don't do much else with the photos other then let them sit on a drive, so I'll be posting some of them here each day.
About these photos:
This is the AGFA PD16, marketed in 1935 (possibly). It's a medium format camera with a non-standard film type. Even though it's from an era when it was common to change your shutter speed and aperture, I don't see a way to do it on this one, there are only two settings, INST and TIME. When In INST, the shutter flicks on and off normally at one speed, but in TIME mode the shutter stays down until you push it back up again manually. Can you imagine timing your camera's shutter with a stop watch and manually closing it? It seems that would be pretty common if this were your main camera.
I got this camera in Minnesota at an antique grounds called "Hot Sams", where there are several acres of semi-organized antique stuff including old cars, some amusement ride carts, a full boxcar, and a homemade submarine, and lots of other random large antique stuff, all for sale.
In the very center of it all was a tiny house stuffed with more traditional antiques, with a tiny old lady running it all. She came out when we were posing by the 10 foot tall Statue of Liberty and invited us inside. Dawn found the camera and I haggled the price down to something around 15$. It wasn't a great deal, but if anything it is a souvenir of Hot Sams.