Chicago Ferrotype Mandel-ette

Photos by Sylvain Halgand text by Sylvain Halgand. From the collection of Sylvain Halgand. Last update 2022-03-23 par Sylvain Halgand.

Manufactured or assembled in USA from 1913 to (After) 1913.
Index of rarity in France: Rare (among non-specialized garage sales)
Inventory number: 1556

See the complete technical specifications

Chronology of cameras Chicago Ferrotype

Traduction de Manuel M

This camera is an camera of street, intended to make it possible to mobile photographers to take in photograph passers-by and to give the photography very quickly to them.

For that, it is necessary to use a direct positive on paper. Inside the camera, there are small inventories of hard-bound postcards of size 6 X 9 cm. Their back is printed rather coarsely.
The cards are piled up the ones behind the others, sensitive face round towards the lens, in the vertical direction. After each exposure, the photographer slips his hand into the camera thanks to a sleeve. He opens the “card tank” and takes, the first. He closes again the “tank” and slips, by a slit located in the basis of the camera, the card in the developing tank. This tank is absent from this specimen. The tank is fullfilled of the developing solution. After the process action, the photographer separates the tank from the camera. The tank is maintained under the camera by rails and it is easy to remove it. The photographer takes out the card of the bath with a claw and makes it dry. The process is inexpensive and makes it possible to sell these small photographs quickly.
The photographers of street will use this kind of camera until the arrival of the first Polaroid.

The camera is of construction very simple. It is out of light wood, covered with a fabric. The lens is a meniscus, without adjustment. There is only one speed.
The viewfinder is reduced to its more simple expression.
This kind of camera is intended to be used only outside, under optimum conditions for lighting.

The name of this camera comes from that of its inventor Louis Mandel who settled patent in 1914 of it.