ICA A/50 Analogue folding camera

A vintage ICA Atom platen A50 camera

You are bidding on a vintage ICA Atom platen A50. What a wonderful little collector's camera. In good condition — a nice collectible camera.

Description

The Atom is a folding plate camera for 4.5x6 cm plates, originally made by Hüttig in 1908 and, after the company participated in the merger to create Ica, produced by them from 1909 to 1925.
There are three similar vertically-oriented models, the Atom A and models 50 and 51; the Atom B is horizontally oriented.

The Hüttig cameras have two brilliant finders mounted in the center at the front of the bed, allowing either model to be used upright or on its side. The ICA cameras have a single, slightly larger brilliant finder in the same position; these do not appear to be rotatable for use with the camera held on its side. The finder of the Atom B projects below the bed when erected.


Specifications


A number of lenses available for the Hüttig camera, including a simple achromat, an f/6.8 Dagor, an f/6.8 or f/5.4 Maximar, or an f/6.3 Tessar; the shutter is one of Hüttig's own.
The ICA cameras are more common, and have either a 6.5 cm f/4.5 Tessar or an f/6.8 Hekla, along with a dial-set Compound shutter with speeds from 1 to 1/300 second.


History
International Camera A.G. was formed on October 7, 1909, by four camera makers: Hüttig, Wünsche, Krügener, and Carl Zeiss Palmos. Three years later, Zulauf was added.
In 1926, ICA merged with Contessa-Nettel, Ernemann, and Goerz to form Zeiss Ikon. Some cameras continued to display the ICA logo after 1926.
Production was marked with a letter preceding the serial number, from 'A' to 'K'. Then, Zeiss Ikon used the system from the letter 'L' until 1972. The last camera, a Nixe 555 with serial number K99xxx, bears the name 'Ica' on the body but was already marketed with the name 'Zeiss Ikon' on the front.
Original ICA factory data regarding production figures and serial numbers is unavailable. The information provided below is based on serial numbers and production years of Carl Zeiss Jena lenses and Deckel Compur / Compound shutters.
The book 'Carl Zeiss Kamera-Register 1902-2012' has also been used to determine the years of production of the Ica camera models.
Before being mounted on a camera, lenses and shutters could have been stored in the factory for some time (even years). Not all of them were necessarily mounted in strict chronological order, so this table is merely approximate.
Based on a sample of over 600 cameras, this is the estimate.
Letter estimate of the year of production.
Some early production without serial number 1909-1910.
1910-1912
1912-1913
C 1913-1914
D 1914-1916
1916-1920
1920-1921
G 1921-1922
H 1921-1922
J 1922-1924
K 1924 to 1926
In 1910, Ica claimed to produce 90,000 cameras per year.
But serial numbers starting with the letter 'A' have been found on cameras from 1911/1912. Perhaps the affirmation was not entirely accurate; anyway, some early cameras have been found without serial numbers, so it is reasonable to think that the numbering system started later, or that it was not applied to all models from the beginning.

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 “CAM059” 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.