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FILCA A, B and C, Where's D


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excuse my ignorance but what publication is VDOM? (presume it's an acronym)

 

I suspect it is VIDOM (the same as the name of an early Leica viewfinder) which is the magazine of the German Leica Historica Society. Their website is now in German only https://www.leica-historica.de/de/. Up to recently they had a small section in English, but that seems to have disappeared.

 

William

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excuse my ignorance but what publication is VDOM? (presume it's an acronym)

Sorry for the misstape (using a smartphone is easy to make it ) you have to read VIDOM and to follow William post, there is, since this year an insert sheet (or two ) where the most important articles are translated in english.

It is not easy to scan the magazine pages and I do not know if it is allowed to do so for posting everywhere.

 

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  • 4 weeks later...

I have always liked the reloadable cassettes, ever since I used the IXMOO version in my M3 in the 1970’s.

I have now gone back to using several screw and M Leicas and have a collection of both B and N cassettes for them.

I also have the Nikon, Canon and Contax cassettes for my Nikon S2, Canon 3 and Contax 2a.

I had a Konica cassette that looked as if it would fit the Leicas but did not. I have a couple of Asahi/Pentax cassettes that are heavy gauge reloadables similar to normal disposable cassettes.

I would like to get examples of the Leica A, C and D versions.

I had a copy of the Vith book, read it and sold it for 10 times what I paid for it !

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  • 9 months later...

So much has been posted, I am not sure if this will help clarify any remaining issues; but here are photos from the May 1933 Leica Photography magazine, discussing the D (KASAM) and Agfa cassettes. Regards.

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On 1/23/2016 at 12:39 PM, willeica said:

Thanks TomB_tx and new2leica for your helpful advice. I was beginning to think that the FILCA D was even more rare than the FILCA C. The most common one seems to be the FILCA B. Based on the contemporary Leica catalogues and camera manuals from the mid to late 1930s, it seems that if you walked into a Leica dealer at that time and asked for a re-loadable film cassette you would have been given the Type B rather than the Type D. I have seen one reloadable cassette sold on ebay called the Leitz-Agfa film cassette which resembles the FILCA D, as described in Vith's book. I had noted that Lager had quoted from Vith's book and I will seek out a copy. The search continues.

 

William

William, there is a copy of Vith's book for sale at Wonder Book, Frederick, MD USA but at $142. I have seen them for sale from time to time at considerably less than this, so it might pay to wait a bit. 

Wilson

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 I should have asked Jim Lager about FILCAs when we were cruising down the Rhine together last Sunday. We discussed instead 'restorations' and 'special editions'. Neither of us liked these. Jim felt that my completely brassed I Model A SN 1661 had been stripped down with a view to a restoration, but that whoever owned it decided to sell it rather than to restore it. I like it in its brassed state and I also like the SN which reflects my 6th of June birthday. The previous owner had used FILCAs as it still had the long film clip, which would not allow a modern Kodak cassette to be inserted, as shown below. I swapped it instead for the shortened clip from SN 1783 which will allow a modern cassette to be inserted. I hope that the photos below are in the right sequence. The new website has made inserting images incredibly 'clunky' compared with the old website and does not, for example, allow text to be inserted around images. I hope that Andreas is listening.

As for the D cassette, Alan posted a photo of what might have been one here some years ago, but I have not seen one confirmed as such. The FILCA C only lasted a few months and Leica then reverted back to the B. The D was then due to appear, but it seems to have been replaced very quickly by the Agfa Leica/Leitz cassette. I am not sure that Vith's book adds anything to the issue as it was presumably was based on information supplied by Leica. I hope that, eventually, the new Leica Archives will provide answers to what is fascinating little side avenue in the Leica story.

William

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  • 4 months later...
On 13/3/2019 at 0:42, TomB_tx said:

William: si aún desea un cassette tipo D, ahora hay uno en eBay (EE. UU.).

El código de Leitz no era FILCA, sino KASAM, así que busque a Leitz KASAM.

If they are these: they are Leitz-Agfa - Tipo D 

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  • 1 month later...

I just bought a Leitz-Agfa cassette and then noticed that this is the shape of cassette that appears in the Morgan and Lester manuals in the illustration of the film path through the camera. The same illustration was used up to the 1950’s and possibly only dropped when they started illustrating the M series cameras.

The top brass end of the cassette will unclip, but the leaflet shown above in post #44 describes it as only to be used once and “torn open”.

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Edited by Pyrogallol
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Yes, I have a couple of these now, and they are nicely made in brass and intended for re-use. I’ve read that these were introduced with the model II Leica, and that early on the Leica II purchase included 2 of these cassettes, and that the Leica baseplate of these models had no “key” to operate the FILCA cassette. (Although the baseplate has generally been upgraded to work with FILCA by now.) The period where the D cassette was used was quite brief. Leitz then went back to the B version, which is the only one that actually used the FILCA part number.

The construction is quite unlike the Leica made A, B, & C cassettes, and I’d guess these were provided to Leitz by Agfa to promote Agfa film. I believe Agfa sold pre-spooled film, paper wrapped, to easily refill the D cassettes.

I notice the small round button on the lower end of the D is positioned so it hits the baseplate probe on the Leica that normally unlocks the FILCA latch spring. On the D cassette this keeps the shorter D positioned high enough so the film centers in the film rails, preventing the cassette moving down “off the rails” as can happen with conventional pre-loaded cassettes.

I notice these D cassettes fit my Ia (converted to II) better than my A or B cassettes.

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  • 4 months later...
On 4/27/2019 at 6:35 PM, Pyrogallol said:

I just bought a Leitz-Agfa cassette and then noticed that this is the shape of cassette that appears in the Morgan and Lester manuals in the illustration of the film path through the camera. The same illustration was used up to the 1950’s and possibly only dropped when they started illustrating the M series cameras.

The top brass end of the cassette will unclip, but the leaflet shown above in post #44 describes it as only to be used once and “torn open”.

I have just got a type A cassette. I saw three cassettes for sale on the bay and thought the picture showed one of them with a v shaped top to the spring. It is an A. The spool only has a plain slit to hold the film, not the later grip and not the bar to tuck the film end under illustrated in the Vith book. The other two are normal FILCA cassettes, though one does not have any name engraving on the bottom, does that mean it is also an early one?

the picture shows the A cassette on the first edition copy of the Vith book I bought recently. Being the first edition the A cassette is the only version illustrated in the book. It is a German edition, was the first edition ever issued in English?

 

 

 

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  • 1 year later...
On 10/13/2018 at 1:37 PM, willeica said:

 I should have asked Jim Lager about FILCAs when we were cruising down the Rhine together last Sunday. We discussed instead 'restorations' and 'special editions'. Neither of us liked these. Jim felt that my completely brassed I Model A SN 1661 had been stripped down with a view to a restoration, but that whoever owned it decided to sell it rather than to restore it. I like it in its brassed state and I also like the SN which reflects my 6th of June birthday. The previous owner had used FILCAs as it still had the long film clip, which would not allow a modern Kodak cassette to be inserted, as shown below. I swapped it instead for the shortened clip from SN 1783 which will allow a modern cassette to be inserted. I hope that the photos below are in the right sequence. The new website has made inserting images incredibly 'clunky' compared with the old website and does not, for example, allow text to be inserted around images. I hope that Andreas is listening.

As for the D cassette, Alan posted a photo of what might have been one here some years ago, but I have not seen one confirmed as such. The FILCA C only lasted a few months and Leica then reverted back to the B. The D was then due to appear, but it seems to have been replaced very quickly by the Agfa Leica/Leitz cassette. I am not sure that Vith's book adds anything to the issue as it was presumably was based on information supplied by Leica. I hope that, eventually, the new Leica Archives will provide answers to what is fascinating little side avenue in the Leica story.

William

 

 

Revisiting this thread, I'm curious about the change from the long locking device (which is I guess what the IIIa manual calls the 'V1 lock') and the shorter version ('V2 lock'). Did V1 work with all versions of the FILCA, or was it perhaps incompatible with the later versions? Did Leitz change from V1 to V2 purely to allow the use of disposable cassettes, or had they already done so, perhaps when they changed the FILCA? If the change to V2 was just to accommodate disposable cassettes, it seems a bit odd that these cassettes would be designed in such a way that the Leica would need to be retrofitted with the V2 lock. Perhaps there just wasn't a good way of getting this type of cassette to work without a redesigned lock, or there were by then several different marginally incompatible 35mm film chamber designs (Contax, Kodak, etc.) and at least one of them would have to be changed slightly so that a universal disposable cassette could be made?

Edited by Anbaric
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49 minutes ago, Anbaric said:

Revisiting this thread, I'm curious about the change from the long locking device (which is I guess what the IIIa manual calls the 'V1 lock') and the shorter version ('V2 lock'). Did V1 work with all versions of the FILCA, or was it perhaps incompatible with the later versions? Did Leitz change from V1 to V2 purely to allow the use of disposable cassettes, or had they already done so, perhaps when they changed the FILCA? If the change to V2 was just to accommodate disposable cassettes, it seems a bit odd that these cassettes would be designed in such a way that the Leica would need to be retrofitted with the V2 lock. Perhaps there just wasn't a good way of getting this type of cassette to work without a redesigned lock, or there were by then several different marginally incompatible 35mm film chamber designs (Contax, Kodak, etc.) and at least one of them would have to be changed slightly so that a universal disposable cassette could be made?

See my post No 47 above. I had to replace a 'long lock', presumably the V1 with a 'short lock' , presumably the V2, in order to use a modern film cassette in a 1926 I Model A. The Leitz Agfa cassette was one of the 'prototypes' of the modern film cassette and it would seem that at some point Leica accepted that was the direction of travel for future cassette design. I have a lot of FILCAs and cameras to check in order to confirm this eg, which have long and which have short locks (the latter being the majority, I imagine) and I also have quite a few FILCAs, maybe about 20. When I can find the time, I will check this. I recently checked a number of my 1930s cameras with the FILCA B, which contained my 70 year old Swiss Photos, and the FILCA worked in all of them, but some were more smooth than others.

William 

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I have about a dozen types N and B cassettes in regular use. I find there are differences in the cross bar in the spools that engage with the camera rewind drive. Some crossbars are thicker than others and the thick ones do not fit the film winder handle on my Weston bulk film loader. The plastic claw arms on the winder are not wide enough apart to fit the wider crossbar in the cassettes. The camera rewind claw has wider grips and engage with all the cassettes, as you would expect them to.

I do also find that some older screw camera bodies do not like some cassettes. When loading the film the camera base plate lock does not turn fully to open the cassette. I can only think that the baseplate mechanism that lifts the cassette spring to allow the inner shell to turn is not quite lifting the cassette spring quite far enough. So I have to accept that, take the film out and try another cassette !

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2 minutes ago, levegh said:

What a shame it is no longer possible to buy cut lengths of film with each end shaped to suit a Leica, one to push into the spool of a FILCA and the other cut correctly to fit when you load the camera.

Stuart

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While talking about FILCA cassettes, can anyone tell me is there a special knack to getting them on and off the AFLOO winder or is that winder designed only for IXMOO and KOOBF cassettes (I bought my AFLOO for reloading the KOOBF cassettes for my 250FF Reporter, inside a daylight loading bag). I have to use a knife blade to hold the spring loaded centring axle depressed, so that I can winkle the loaded cassettes out of the winder. 

Wilson

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