Photographs by PHSNE Treasurer Sid Chatterjee

A 120 roll film Rolleiflex camera from the estate of Henry Weisenberg will be available for viewing and sale at Photographica 93 on Saturday, April 25th. The particular model is the Standard 621 with a 75mm f/3.5 Zeiss Tessar lens, which dates it from 1934 to 1937. Look for it at the PHSNE table.

The Rollei comes with its original carry case and lens cap. Though the paint has worn off, the original serial number is legible.

According to camera-wiki, the “old standard” Rolleiflex was manufactured by Franke and Heidecke, Braunschweig, Germany, from 1932 to 1938. The Old Standard was the first Rollei to use 120 film.

Cameras are now designated as “standard”, “original standard”, or “old standard”, but you won’t find these names on the camera. “Rolleiflexes are generally dated and identified by serial numbers. Collectors distinguish between the three sub-variants of the old standard with the factory’s internal type numbers: 620, 621, and 622.”

Camera-wiki claims that, “The finder is the best part about this Rolleiflex. When looking into the waist-level finder, the photographer finds a relatively clear ground glass screen. The popularity of the Rollei continued to gain momentum. By 1938, the 300,000th Rolleiflex was sold and the factory numbered 725 employees.

One reviewer explained the camera’s commercial success this way: “What made the Rolleiflex so innovative was its combination of the combination of a reflex focusing mechanism and the compact size of a roll film camera. Cameras with reflex focusing were available, and there had even been twin lens cameras, but they were large and expensive. Cameras that used roll film were smaller and more affordable, but most of them were either box cameras that didn’t actually focus, or folding cameras with clunky viewfinders and scale focusing. The Rolleiflex integrated the ease of the reflex finder with the small size of 120 film in one portable, relatively affordable package” (https://casualphotophile.com/2021/07/26/rolleiflex-oldstandard-review/). Almost 100,000 Old Standards were manufactured over six years.