Kodak Bantam Special (1936-1940)

This Kodak Bantam Special was made in Rochester, New York during the 1930s. It has an uncoated f/2.0 46 mm Kodak Anastigmat Ektar lens in a Deckel Compur-Rapid shutter. It takes size 828 film, which is 35 mm wide, but with a paper backing and only one perforation per picture. The picture size is 28 mm x 40 mm and there are 8 pictures on a roll of film. 35 mm cameras had become popular by 1936, and Kodak already had its own 35 mm camera, the Retina built by Kodak AG in Stuttgart-Wangen, Germany, but Kodak saw its Bantam size cameras as an excellent alternative, and pushed the format hard. They produced cameras ranging from simple and inexpensive to full featured luxury models. The luxury model was the Bantam Special designed by Walter Dorwin Teague, one of the fathers of modern American industrial design. An example of this camera is in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art: https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/490903. The original list price was $110 in 1936, which is equivalent in buying power to more than two thousand dollars in 2018.

Front

Closed

Back

Film Chamber

The camera is functionally similar to the made-in-Germany Kodak Retina II 35 mm camera (also introduced in 1936). The Bantam Special has separate viewfinder and range finder eyepieces. The range finder is a split image range finder like the one on the Kodak Medalist. Film is loaded into the camera the same way as other Kodak roll film cameras. You would turn the winding knob until the film automatically stopped at the first exposure. The little green window on the back of the camera lets you see the picture number printed on the backing paper. To advance the film you press the small button on the upper left and turn the winding knob until the film automatically stopped at the next picture. The shutter is not interlocked with the film advance. You could accidentally double expose a picture or skip a picture. The shutter speeds are T (time), B (bulb), 1 second, 1/2, 1/5, 1/10, 1/25, 1/50, 1/100, 1/250 and 1/500. The lens settings are f/2 through f/16. Close focusing distance is 3.5 feet or 1 meter. The focusing scale on my camera is marked in meters, making it an export model.  Kodak did actually export cameras made in the USA.

The Second World War interrupted the supply of shutters from Germany, and in 1941 Kodak changed the shutter on the Bantam Special from the Compur-Rapid to the similar Kodak Supermatic. The new version of the Bantam Special stayed in the catalog until 1948. Kodak finally stopped making all cameras for 828 film in the 1950s and discontinued 828 film in 1985. The one perforation per picture idea lived on in Instamatic (size 126) and Pocket Instamatic (size 110) film.

The shutter on this camera is not working properly, the view finder is fogged, and the only source of fresh 828 film is Film for Classics at $18 for an 8 exposure roll of Tri-X. It might not become a user camera. [Update] A careful look through the lens showed some possible fungus inside, which is another strike against this camera becoming something other than a display piece.