Michael Cleveland

You have to remember the time and circumstances. Filmos were expensive equipment, selling to people who were far more apt than most of us to take off on a world cruise and golf was as much a social phenomenon among the wealthy as it was a sport, so there was much 16mm film footage devoted to golf pros and how-to instructions. I have no interest in golf swings. Ideally I would like to locate one to purchase to complete a collection of early Filmos, but I would be happy enough just to find an example to have a look at it. Outside of the inaccessible Morgana Color Filmo, it is the only model from about the first decade that I don't have in the collection.

That is a good way to date these, provided you are fairly certain the lens is the original one with the camera. Yours also fits in sequence so probably is, but I would be cautious in general trying to date these that way because lenses were often switched, upgraded, added by later owners, or simply replaced, so it's one of those things that warrants care and is most credible when all the numbers are in the proper range.

There have been others made for that purpose, but this is specifically a movie camera.

The standard Filmo had a 216 degree shutter.

There may have been other uses, but it was made specifically for analyzing golf swings, so probably had a limited market.

Yes, I know. That's why I'm looking for it.

That number is in the correct sequence to be the original mag.

Kodak very likely does not have a reference for this, but I've been collecting serial numbers on these for years. Part of my reply to Simon below should have been addressed to you. Proportionally, yours would fall sometime around 1940, so maybe give or take a year.

There is no such connection. The number is just a straight sequential serial number. No production year, no codes. Just a number. The number of your camera would place it somewhere around 1940, if production was fairly consistent from year to year. There were about 9000 CS-I cameras made between 1933 and 1948.

Does anyone have or has anyone seen a Filmo 70-DB? Certainly interested in buying one, but would be happy just to know there's something out there, and perhaps see photos?

Now that's a job I could love. Have fun.

Frank, I wouldn't bother with this. I left this discussion when I realized I was arguing with someone who shows all the signs of crackpot-itis: Certain that he alone has the answers, has a pet theory, treats speculation as evidence, invents evidence, molds evidence (both real and speculative) to fit the theory, ignores or refuses to acknowledge any evidence that does not agree with pet theory, ignores timelines, and so on. I would say you are wasting wear on your keyboard. On the other hand, if you find it entertaining...

I had a rather lengthy reply underway, and somehow this computer switched to another screen on its own and erased it (as it often does), so for now a shorter answer. I'm not really sure what you are trying to say. You say that Howell could not have invented the 2709, yet the camera exists, and no one else invented it. As for mechanical knowledge, there is nothing absent in the time that he could not have drawn on. The claw pull-down dates to the invention of the shuttle sewing machine, at least as early as 1846; pin register is a fairly obvious improvement on that for extreme accuracy of placement of the frame behind the aperture; twin lens still cameras, with one lens for focusing the image, had been on the market at least as early as the 1890's, so there was nothing unusual in applying that to cine cameras. I don't understand your issues with his age. The 20's are considered the most creative and productive years, and you can extend that backwards for a particularly intelligent and inventive mind. As for mechanical knowledge, and access to information, I have a book that was originally published in the 1860's, and several times reprinted, which catalogs diagrams of hundreds of mechanical movements, with pulleys, gears, levers, eccentrics, and anything else you can imagine. It's exactly the kind of reference that would have been quite naturally in the hands of a mechanical inventor. There is simply no shortfall that should have prevented an imaginative inventor like Howell from doing what he is known to have done. As for your criticism of Le Prince, I think you forget that this was the first time such a thing had been done, and the standards you want to apply to his work are only in hindsight based on expectations that derive from later improvements, so they make no sense as critique of his pioneering work. I think you are over-thinking this, over-imaging.

Much more to say about this when I have time, but regarding the Edison article: I haven't had time to do any verification, but I am always suspicious of things unlikely that appear online. I do not put the murder past Edison, though Le Prince was hardly his only rival, and he was not in the habit of murdering rivals, but he was an intelligent man, and it is absolutely inconceivable that he would have put any such admission on paper, especially since the note served no purpose against the surrounding context of his technical notes. So until I can find some kind of verification, I take this with a very large grain of salt. More as time permits.

I meant to note also, that Bell & Howell had completed the tooling for the 17.5mm Filmo, and had at least a couple of demonstration cameras prepared by the time they saw the 16mm demonstration at Kodak. It was a huge decision to scrap all of the investment in the original Filmo in favor of 16mm. The brochures I mentioned suggest the possibility of a limited production run of the earlier Filmo, but may themselves also be from a run printed for the demonstration. There was one other situation in the company's history when they did a similar about-face. The Morgana Color System was announced in Filmo topics, followed by an issue with questions and answers, then disappeared altogether. There was an article in the SMPE Journal many months after the initial announcement, describing the system in detail, complete with photos of a physical camera and projector, but by then B&H had been long silent about it. The actual system apparently never went to market. There was no more mention of it by Bell & Howell, and it's disappearance remains a mystery.