Near Mint! 1953 6x6 Voigtlander Perkeo II with Color-Skopar Lens. CLA’d, Freshly Serviced!

Cleaned, Lubricated & Adjusted. Ready for immediate use!

This is a lovely, very compact, high quality Voigtlander Perkeo II 6x6 camera built in circa 1952. Extremely popular with owners, users and collectors, few are willing to give them up. Folded up it slides easily into a pocket. Unfolded it takes beautiful 6x6 exposures on 120 roll film. Bright exposures alive with all the vivid details and rich colors that only medium format can provide. When it comes to photography, bigger is better and this camera will produce a negative that’s more than four times larger than the average 35mm snapshot. So whether you’re interested in large prints, fine grain, rich tonal gradations or lovely colors, this camera will do all of that and may just become your favorite photographic companion. Its friendly size will never give you a reason to leave it at home. It’s one of the smallest 6x6 cameras ever made. It’s certainly dwarfed by a typical 35mm camera such as the Nikon F4. So it’s no wonder that Voigtlander named this model the “Perkeo”, which is German for pygmy or dwarf.

This camera can shoot beautiful photos quickly too because it has a unique auto-stop film counter. Basically after film is loaded, you just turn the film advance knob until it stops and you’re ready to cock, compose and shoot. This means you won’t be slowed down, searching for numbers through a little red ruby window.  (This is an improved feature for the Perkeo II, which is something the original Perkeo didn’t have.) In fact auto-stop winding was quite usual for a folding camera and when available it was only present in high end cameras.

This camera is in superb condition and it’s been fully serviced. The shutter works beautifully and all speeds (B & 1 sec - 1/500^th) are appropriate. The slow speeds buzz along nicely and the fast ones are clean and snappy. This shutter is flash synched and it works with a normal electronic flash. It’s been tested and a flash will fire correctly at any desired shutter speed. (This is of course a very convenient feature for flash fill.)

The coated lens is the famous f3.5/80mm Color-Skopar. (A superb four element lens nearly identical in design and performance to the Zeiss Tessar.) The serial number indicates it was produced in 1953. The lens is exceptionally clean and clear and looks like new. There are no scratches or cleaning marks and it’s capable of producing lovely photos with modern color and B&W films.

All in all, a very fine camera. It’s the perfect photographic companion for that perfect shot you’ve been looking for. You know the one… the one with the perfect Ansel Adams light breaking through the dark clouds that leaves you wishing you had a medium format camera with you.