Houghtons Limited Ensignette De Luxe No. 2 B Analogue folding camera

Vintage No 2 B Ensignette De Luxe by Houghtons Limited from England with original Leader case

You are praying on a vintage No 2 B Ensignette De Luxe by Houghtons Limited from England with original Leader case. What a wonderful little collector camera. In very good Condition ~Nice Collectable Camera


Description

The Ensignette was one of the very characteristic camera types of Houghtons Ltd., London. This strut folding rollfilm camera of Houghton's "Ensign – British made" brand was an ingenious construction, a real vest pocket item when folded. One of the round framed impressions on its front plate says that it was based on patent 28464 of the year 1907. The Swedish engineer Magnus Niéll had designed this first British all-metal camera of which ten of thousands were made. The camera was launched before Christmas 1909. It was ordered by distributors all over the world, for example by G. Gennert.
The Ensignette was a milestone in popular photography, providing for the first time a practical, truly compact camera at an affordable price to the average man. It was immensely popular, its appearance being timed perfectly to fill the need for a compact pocketable camera. It helped create a new type of photographer the 'Pocket Snap Shooter'.
The camera was designed like a luxurious cigarette metal case, with parts made of different kinds of brass and other metals, except some interior parts and the bellows which was made of very thin leather. Some metal parts were plated. The common feature being the use of struts on all Ensignette cameras.


Ensignette No.2 principal models

• No. 2
• Introduced in 1912.
• Film: Ensign E2 roll film, 2" x 3", six exposures
• Eastman Kodak produced No.129 film for this camera in 1913
• Body brass
• Achromatic meniscus lens
• Flat front plate with pressed circles either side tabs, Ensign flag logo saying British made, and on the left side has "Made by Houghton's Ltd. England"
• No.2 B anastigmat: Cooke anastigmat f/6.8 lens, focusing lever above the front plate, uncommon early focusing version, c.1912

See pictures for cosmetic. All the pictures are from the object itself. What you see is what you will receive. The camera itself has not been tested by myself.
Please can you use the refnr “CAM030” in all our communications.

For your information, I will be selling about a hundred subminiature cameras from my collection in the coming months. So, if you are a collector, follow my account so you can keep up with my other items for sale in the upcoming months. Thank you for bidding.