Butchers Famous Watch Pocket Carbine.

The British Camera that was German!

It is surprising what you un-earth when looking for something else, yes I'm still searching through boxes in the attic for my Weltaflex, as yet I have not found it, but last night I came across this little chap, a Butchers Watch Pocket Carbine ! So as it was time for another post for my millions of subscribers (all 5 of them ) I thought, this is unusual and there really is quite a story with it so here we go!

I bought this in a house clearance auction sometime in the 1980's, really just because I liked the look of it, not as a potential camera to use, 117 film was not available, the shutter is very basic and was a bit hit and miss, but I just liked it. Also it proclaimed in a nice little circular plate, British Made. At that time I was collecting and trying out British Cameras, so it sort of fitted in! It turns out it is as British as Kaiser Bill, but more of that later.

The camera is very compact, it takes 2 1/4A Carbine film, which is Kodak 117 and takes 2 1/4 square images. The shutter is German, a Lukos I shutter, very basic three speeds ! T, B and Instantaneous! The face of the shutter is a simple shiny black enamelled face which actually looks quite neat. Apertures are f11, 16, and 22. The camera according to the chrome scale on the fold down baseboard, focuses down to 3 feet.

This is where our interesting mystery begins! The serial number on the body and the camera back is B10830. The letter B is for ICA cameras from 1912-1913 ! So this camera is German? Lets dig a little deeper. ICA stands for International Camera A.G and was formed by the merger of Huttig, Wunsche, Krugener, and Carl Zeiss Palmos in 1909. Zulauf joined them about three years later. Their is evidence that Butchers in their early years bought a lot of items including cameras from the German firm of Huttig, mentioned above, then after the 1909 merger, carried on buying from Ica.

I first became aware that early Butchers cameras were probably German just by looking at them when I first started collecting old British cameras, this was backed up by a statement in Edward Holmes book written in the mid 1970's 'An Age of Cameras', where he mentions that he thought that Butchers Cameras were of German manufacture. If ever you need a good introduction to collecting early cameras up to 1939, then this book is the one to read! It started me off on the collecting cameras saga and that was it ! Forty odd years later, I'm still messing about with old cameras!

Anyway getting back to this Watch Pocket Carbine camera. If it was made in Dresden Germany, by ICA, in 1912-13 what camera was it. Well John Margetts has a blog on the internet similar to this one but better, and he has a slightly later Watch Pocket Carbine C35133, which is not the same but yet very similar to my example and he points out very clearly that his is virtually the same as an ICA Icarette. His Blog is very convincing, so I'm going along with the theory that my little British Made Butchers Watch Pocket Carbine is actually a ICA Icarette made in Dresden Germany! Stroll on !

When The Great War broke out in 1914, then that was it for a lot of British companies, especially in the Photographic trade, no more getting cameras, lenses and shutters from Germany, that was over ! Even Newman and Guardia, who produced the very best folding cameras of the period, namely the Sibyl had to stop importing German lenses for their Sibyl cameras and fit them with the best British lenses they could find.

Lets look a little bit more at this actual camera. It is worth a detailed look.

The wooden spool here shows the cameras age, no plastic here!

The catch for the camera back is quite a neat design and still works well today, holding the back nice and tight.

The viewfinder is just starting to corrode a little, but the bellows are still nice and supple and free from holes, not bad really for a camera made over a hundred and thirteen years ago!

So there we have it in a nutshell, the British Made Butchers Watch Pocket Carbine was actually an ICA Icarette made in the Fatherland, Dresden Germany! I found this fascinating!

If you want to dig a little further into this subject, then John Margetts Blog is worth a read, oldcamera.blog/2018/10/16/butchers-watch-pocket-carbine/ also Watch Pocket Carbine - Antique and Vintage Cameras on the earlypotography.co.uk site is very informative as is www.ozcamera.com/butcher.html.

If you are interested in cameras from the early wet plate era right up to the start of the Second World War, then grab a copy of the best book ever written on the subject, An age of Cameras by Edward Holmes, copies go for nothing on the internet, it was published by Fountain Press in 1974, re-printed in 1978 and when you think that this was written before the internet was available the wealth of knowledge this gentleman had was incredible. Hardly anyone was collecting old cameras in 1974, so even publishing this book was a risk. Buy an old copy, its amazing!

I hope you found this post interesting, how did they get away with saying something was made in Britain when it was produced in Germany? The subject really intrigued me!

Take care,

Phil