This strut folding camera is branded by Jules Demaria, and is a typical Mentor Klapp II from the period 1914-1922, in view of the shutter type. Many makers rebranded these cameras across Germany and France. The identifiable characters are, besides the shutter, the single round struts and the front standard. This camera also has the Goltz & Breutmann (makers of Mentor) logo on the inner back which confirms the origin. Jules Lapierre lists the camera on his catalogue of 1922 – in this catalogue it is written that the maximum speed shutter is 1/1000, however this particular camera goes to 1/1800, which indicates earlier construction.

This same camera can be found on the Demaria-Lapierre catalogue of 1913-14 as the Caleb Sportsman SB. The name Caleb Sportsman can be traced on Demaria Frères catalogues from 1905 and 1906, and Demaria Lapierre catalogue from 1909, however in these cases the camera is not from a Mentor Klapp, but instead seems an Ernemann Klapp or Velo-Klapp. Jules Demaria lists again in the 1931 catalogue an 'Appareil Pliant a main Type 1', but again it is not a Mentor. So it seems that along the period the names ‘Appareil Pliant type 1’ and ‘Caleb Sportsman’ were used for different cameras of the same type, but of different origins.

The camera, made of wood covered by grainy black leather, is designed for 10 x 15 cm plates. It has a folding Newton finder at the top. The shutter has separate controls for slit width (from 2 mm to 8 cm plus total opening) and spring tension (numerical scale from 1 to 6). The slit width is adjusted by pulling the top knob (cocking knob) and then using the middle knob with recessed scale. The lower knob sets the spring tension. The shutter delivers speeds in the range ½ to 1/1800 plus T.

The lens in this camera is clearly not designed for it and was added by a former user. It is a wide-angle Rodenstock Eurynar Anastigmat f: 6.8 18 x 24 for large format cameras, and has no focusing. It thus has no interest for the camera description.