February 3, 2026
#536
Gentle reader,
Long time readers know that the largest collection I had was film cameras. In the mid-1990's Nancy and I attended the annual Saint James Bazaar at a local church. There, I found a Yashica J 35mm rangefinder camera.
At the time, I knew nothing about cameras. My parents had given me a green plastic camera in the 1960's. I had a little red window in the back. And, after getting married the first time, I bought a JCPenney 110 film camera. We were expecting our first child and, well, you gotta have a camera if you have kids. Plus, Mom worked at JCPenney, so, family discount.
Yes, that was me in the 1980's, six feet, three inches tall and only 155 pounds. I'm holding said 110 camera. When I was in my fifties, maybe, I came across some black and white pictures and could not figure out what I was looking at. So, I threw them away.
MORE years later and I had a mental forehead slap moment. I suddenly remembered what those pictures were of: A Bee swarm. The photo above is not it, I found that one online. I converted it to black and white.
When we were living in Ross, California in the 1960's, I was in elementary school at Ross School. I was in our backyard one Summer day I and heard a strange sound overhead. I looked up and saw this dark moving cloud flying over me. It settled on a tree in my best friend Davy's backyard, next door. I ran inside, grabbed my plastic camera, checked to make sure it had (roll) film in it. The red window showed that it did. I climbed up onto the roof of their "summer house", not much of one. It had a flat roof which Davy and I used to jump off. Kids do the stupidest things. Then I got as close as I dared and took pictures of it. How many people, let alone kids had that opportunity?
The green plastic camera was one of these, from Sears & Roebuck, or:
This version. They also came in tan.
But, I digress. Even though I sold off 99% of my 505 cameras years ago, only keeping the ones given to me, including my new-father-in-law's Yashica J camera, I still had the itch to buy more cameras. I fought it, using logic: "You don't have any place to put them.", for many years.
Gifted camera collection (plus two large ones, not shown) as of 2025. Señor's Yashica J is third from the left. The one on the left, a Voigtlander Vitessa, had been in the Korean War. Tiny one on the left in it's yellow case is a Hit camera. Tiny one to the right was Nancy's Mom's 16mm camera. We have come across tiny slides shot with it at National Airport where her Dad worked for Eastern Airlines. The small one next to the black one, my brother, Jim, sent to me from Richmond. It is the first model of Rollei 35 and was made in Germany. Nancy's Dad sent me a 4x5" Press Camera (below) on the left. On the right is a paper camera Nancy bought me as a kit. It is a pinhole camera which uses 35mm film.
Back to the story of how I first got into collecting film cameras: When we got home from that bazaar/church-yard sale, I showed what I had bought to Nancy's Dad, Julio, although, I called him Señor. He showed me how to focus (rangefinder cameras do not look through the camera's lens), wind the film, set the shutter speed and lens aperture, and more. Turns out he had the same camera which you will see later.
Above is a crappy picture of that very first camera shot with my very first "real" 35mm camera, an Olympus OM-10 35mm SLR. I had a lot to learn! The very first photo I shot with it, was of Nancy in her Dad's living room sitting cross-legged on the floor. 
What you see above is my creation to securely display your camera collection without shelves or glass cabinets and made them (nearly) theft-proof. I called my invention CameraLock. I sold plans on the Internet so that people could build their own.
Recently, I had been feeling nostalgic. If you read my last article, The Robb Collections: How Playing a Couple of Audio Cassette Tapes Took Me Back in Time to the 1990's I was nostalgic in that one too. Anyway, I began looking at old film cameras on eBay. A BAD idea. I did find one I longed for because it looked like a 2/3rds scale Leica camera. The original Yamato PAX camera. 
Like every other PAX camera, I had in the past, this one too had nothing worked on it. But, I had one. Again. I had two previously. This is one of them. I haven't made images of the new one yet. Then, I was looking for another Aires 35 IIIC. I had four of them in the past. The forth one actually worked. But, by then film was scarce and expensive to process. So, it went to someone else via eBay. To my surprise, that day, I saw an Aires camera I had never heard of, the 35 IIIS!
An eBay seller in Japan had this one, it was completely overhauled and fully working. He wanted $150 for it, plus shipping and the Trump Tariff. I did not buy it. Then, I saw another one for only $35 which was in the USA and I snatched it up! The lens was stiff to focus, but I got it working smoothly. The shutter and aperture worked fine too. Much to my delight! The only thing wrong was that the rangefinder inside the top of the camera did not work. Still, I had this rare Aires camera. It looked like it's big brother which came out the same year, the 35-V:
The main difference was the V has interchangeable lenses: A short telephoto lens and a mild wide angle lens.
I never shot film with it. I sold it along with all my other cameras. I was DONE collecting cameras! Right...
My goal back when I was buying an selling cameras, was to sell enough cameras to afford to buy a Leica. And I did! here it was with a Leica Hektor 135mm lens on it and an Imarect multiple lens viewfinder, attached on top. Actually that one is a Soviet copy. But, it worked exactly the same.
The only other Leica lens I could afford was this Summarit 5cm (50mm) f1.5 lens. It's mounted on the Voigtlander Bessa R Nancy bought for me for Christmas one year.
Before I had sold my Leica IIIC, below, I had the shutter curtains replaced with FED curtains and the whole camera cleaned and adjusted. I had removed the "Shark Skin" covering and replaced it wit red sea-snake skin. I also sold the Summarit lens and bought a Russian Jupiter 3 which is a copy of a Zeiss Sonnar. 
Today, vintage film cameras, in most cases, are selling for crazy money compared to when I sold my entire collection. So, I started looking for early FEDs and Zorkis. 
An eBay seller in Ukraine, had this Zorki 1, it turns out that it is a 1-B, in very nice and fully working, condition with a clean and clear lens. He only wanted $78 plus $25 for air shipping. I watched and waited and sure enough, he dropped the price to $75. I bought it on January 21st.
I watched and waited, fully aware of what Putin has done to Ukraine, especially to Kyiv. Well, it made it to New York very quickly, cleared customs, also very quickly and it was delivered today, February 2nd. 
Thanks to instant translation programs, I sent Anton a message via eBay, in Ukrainian thanking him and telling him how happy I was. Plus, I left him a glowing Feedback on eBay. He has more Soviet cameras at great prices. FAINA-STORE is his eBay seller ID.
In order to determine which Zorki 1 it was, I found this handy image on line. By it and the camera's serial number: 132279, I determined that it is a 1-B made in 1952.
The auction did not mention a case, but it came in this one which, for being 74 years old, is in fantastic condition!
There is one thing I have discovered shooting digital images for many years: The lens and camera sees things in MUCH greater detail than my eyes do! I see dust and such I could not normally see with just my eyeglasses.
Here it is! I tried it out, it is just as he wrote in his description. All shutter speeds work and are (sounding) accurate. The lens aperture works smoothly as does the focus and rangefinder. I can literally load it with film and, using a handheld meter, shoot images with it.
These and the early Leica cameras do not have removable bodies. One has to load the film from the bottom. FED and Zorki engineers were making more advanced camera sooner than Leica camera engineers were.
The lens, also a copy of the Leica Elmar, collapses for compact carrying with or without the case attached.
I had two of these back in the day. According to my research, one was a 1-C, also from 1952, serial number: 222649 with the name like this one has, the other an export model with Russian and English text. It's serial number is: 445744 and it was made in 1954.
I have some careful cleaning to do, something I did with a great number of cameras after buying them.
The lenses thread (screw) off and on. The lens moves back and forth when moving that lever. The back of the lens presses on that little piece of metal at the top of the opening. That moves the rangefinder to focus.
Another tell-tale is the two screws on the bottom plate. Later Zorki I models do not have those. 
Fortunately it does have the film take-up spool. One pulls it out and attaches the film leader to it. Then, one carefully slides the film into that slit, pushing the spool and film body into the camera. Put the bottom on, wind the film until number 1 lines up with the pointer on top (it's pointing at the bid knob on the right, below) and you are ready to shoot! What is printed inside every early Leica camera so that the person is able to successfully load film.
Don't forget to pull out the lens! Many a roll of film was wasted when people either forgot or did not know one was supposed to pull it out.
One thing I forgot to tell you. Those are new shutter curtains in there. Anton could charge a lot more for his cameras. But, I imagine the $100 I sent him for this camera goes a long way in war-torn Ukraine. At least, I hope so.
My eBay seller name is rfcollectin, short for Rangefinder Collector. I stopped selling on eBay once Uncle Sam figured out a way to collect taxes from sellers.
I started down a rabbit hole of buying Soviet-era 35mm rangefinder cameras. I had many of them, some very rare and desirable. My FED collection, below.
My Zorki collection, above. I had a number of other ones, including medium format SLRs and TLRs from the former Soviet Union countries. I even bought some Russian-made Leica copies. Artisans cleverly erased all the markings on FED and Zorki's first model camera, since they were blatantly copies of Leica I cameras way back in the 1940's when they first came out.
They both worked perfectly. This one started life as a first model Zorki. Largely, they were made to trap tourists visiting Soviet countries into thinking they were real Leicas. The black one was bought by a documentary maker who was making a film about the NAZIs.
The artisans normally dechromed the bodies and often polished the brass to fool tourists into thinking it was gold plating. I think this one was a later model FED I.
These two photos are 2007 digital photos when digital camera sensors were very small.
These two images were shot by Anton.
Thank you SO much for taking the time to read this rather long article! Sorry about the fonts size and type changing throughout the article! The OCD in me can't stand that, but, try as I might, Blogger keeps doing it!
Feel free to comment below or on Facebook. I was looking through my previous articles on cameras and found that I had never written about Soviet cameras. Thus, I will start doing so.
Scott Robb
February 3, 2026
#536
