http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3801143631&category=15247

Not mine, I have no financial interest in it. Cute, eh?

Cheers,

Dan

"Mentor" cameras, mostly large SLRs, seem to have been around since Hector was a pup. My father knew of them from the pre-WWII years, and I think Goltz & Breutmann began manufacturing them before WWI. According to brief references I've found, they were the European counterpart of Graflex. For a'that, "Mentors" don't seem to show up often on these shores, and I cannot find that they have attracted much attention. I wonder why?

Quote:

On 2004-03-02 08:35, t.r.sanford wrote: "Mentor" cameras, mostly large SLRs, seem to have been around since Hector was a pup. My father knew of them from the pre-WWII years, and I think Goltz & Breutmann began manufacturing them before WWI. According to brief references I've found, they were the European counterpart of Graflex. For a'that, "Mentors" don't seem to show up often on these shores, and I cannot find that they have attracted much attention. I wonder why?

Hard to know why not. There were also English LF SLRs that were similar to Graflexes and seem to be uncommon here. Not unheard of anymore, thanks to the great global bazaar, but not here in large numbers. Similarly for the Arca Swiss SLR.

I've understood that Mentor view cameras as well as the SLRs had their own film holders and wouldn't accept standard ones. That would limit their mobility. And then, post-WWII they were made in the wrong half of Germany, although that certainly didn't keep us from getting 35 mm gear from there.

Cheers,

Dan

In my youth, the great English large-format SLRs from Adams, Marion and Thornton Pickard were not forgotten, though the memory was fading. They were prized for their superb workmanship, but I have the impression that none was manufactured in great quantity, though some were available for a long time. Discussions of them often included passing reference to the "Mentors," but little detail.

I'm sure you're right about the line falling afoul of the Iron Curtain. Indeed, 35mm. cameras and lenses could get through (more easily to Western Europe than to these shores, except for the "Exakta" and "Praktica" lines). But even the 2¼x2¼ SLRs were hard to find, and large-format gear was virtually unknown, at least in the stores where I hung out.