Several rare early Soviet cameras are to go on sale in at an auction in Germany next month.
The cameras, offered at the Wetzlar Camera Auctions in Wetzlar, include one of the first 35mm Soviet cameras to go into mass production, the Artel Novaya Shkolar Cyclocamera, and a rare example of one of the most highly regarded Soviet rangefinder cameras, the GOI Pioneer. expected to sell for tens of thousands of Euros.
Designed in 1935 by S V Sharov in Leningrad (now St Petersburg), the Cyclocamera was produced between 1938 and 1940. Ukrainian photographic historian Ivan Zotikov estimates around 15,000 were made. “Few have survived,” he told Kosmo Foto.
(Pics above: Wetzlar Camera Auctions)
The camera is a very simple reflex 35mm camera which shoots up to 65 23mm x 24mm square-format images. The film is transported by a retractable metal slide, which holds the film precisely for one frame. The camera uses rolled film rather than cassettes, and has a shutter speed of around 1/120th , plus “B”.
The camera was one of the first 35mm designs to go into production alongside cameras such as the Leica-copy Pioneer and the FAG. Jo Geier of Wetzlar Camera Auctions told Kosmo Foto the Cycolcamera was ‘one of the more interesting cameras” to come out of the USSR.
The camera has a starting price of €400 and is expected to sell for between €800 and €1,000.
A GOI Pioneer rangefinder, a Soviet Leica copy produced in the 1930s and 40s by the State Optical Institute in Leningrad, is also offered for sale; this particular model is from 1944, the last year of production.
Geier told Kosmo Foto: “The GOI Pioneer is only the third example I have seen. And it is really built beautifully. Certainly a holy grail of Soviet and Leica copy camera collectors.”
Wetzlar Camera Auction said in the listing: “Extremely rare, last version of the famous Leica copy made by GOI in 1944. With fast GOI Jupiter 5cm f/1.5 No. 44083903 in rangefinder coupled M40 screw mount. The optics with dust inclusions and slight imperfections. Less than a handful of these cameras are known to exist today.”
This rare Soviet rangefinder is expected to sell for between €50,000 and €70,000.
Also offered at the sale is a Multiplier Reflex plate camera from Lyubimov, a very rare design from the 1930s.
This innovative design shoots 15 images of 30mm x 35mm on a standard 13cm by 18cm plate. The camera comes complete with its GOMZ Industar-7 105/3.5 lens, though its GOMZ shutter is no longer functional. The camera is expected to sell for between €8,000 and €10,000.
Also included among the Soviet items is a GOMZ Sport, the first mass-produced SLR in photographic history; it’s a late model from 1941 from shortly before production in the GOMZ factory ended due to the Siege of Leningrad in World War II.
Geier said: “Soviet cameras and lenses are more popular and the rare cameras are much more appreciated now than 5-10 years ago. Especially the cameras and lenses which are copies of the Leica and Contax.”
- Many thanks to Ivan Zotikov for the original documents used for this article
I'm a New Zealander who has been living in London since the mid-1990s, shooting film seriously since the year 2000. Kosmo Foto was launched in 2012 and has since become a film brand, with the release of my first films Kosmo Foto Mono 35mm (2017) and Kosmo Foto Mono 120 (2019).
I’m doing everything I can to promote film photography in the 21st Century, and help it survive and thrive. If you want to write something for Kosmo Foto, please drop me a line at foto.dowling@gmail.com.
