Kodak No2 Folding Pocket Brownie

I have been after one of these cameras for a while, and managed recently to 'win' one for a reasonable price on e-bay. These cameras were made from 1907 to 1915. The red bellows that my camera has were changed to black in 1911 so that dates my camera as before that year so it is around 102 years old.

The camera body is made of wood covered in imitation leather, the front shutter panel is made of brass I think and is engraved as shown below:

The patents listed at the bottom of the shutter are dated 1908 and 1909, so the camera was probably made in 1910 or 1911. The dial at the top can be set to I for instantaneous which is about 1/50th second, B is for bulb (shutter stays open until you release the shutter lever (on the left)) and T (shutter stays open until you press it again). Aperture is set using the leaver at the bottom. According to what I have read on Flickr Brownie Group 1 is equal to f16, 2 is f22 and 3 is f32. It takes standard 120 film. The lens in mounted behind the shutter. The shutter seems to work fine and the lens is OK, it was quite dusty when I got it but it cleaned up OK, no fungus I can see.

As New Year's Day was the first sunny day in weeks I loaded it up with Ilford FP4 and took some photos down at the Grand Union canal. Back home I develop it in Rodinal 1:100 using 1 hour 'stand' development. I think the results are surprisingly good: 

The lens seems pretty sharp in the center of the photo but the edges are quite blurry. It was a bright sunny day and the contrast of the photos is good. 

Photos were hand held, so the shutter must be firing at about 1/50th, the aperture was set at 2 (f22). Not bad for a 100 year old camera.