Found this at a flea market

[Len Philpot]

My wife and I spent the weekend in a small Arkansas town. She wanted to look through a local flea market and I found this for $30. I bought it out of curiosity, because I don't have a roll of film to my name (and even less current knowledge of where to get film processed, color much less B&W). But for $30 it looked interesting. I think (?) it's a Zeiss-Ikon Contina Ia (1a?) based on this page. Anyone care to educate me if it's worth anything at all, even $30 US?

Thanks.

 

[Ralph Turner]

Great camera. When I got mine the film advance /shutter cocking linkage had become disengaged. Having had it serviced, though, it now works silky smooth. The little Novar is a surprisingly good lens.

 

[Len Philpot]

Everything appears to work properly, although the film type "reminder" disc is a bit stiff to turn. I'm guessing this one was manufactured for export as the distance scale on the lens is in feet, not meters. There's a label inside the film well:



A little easier to read in altered monochrome:



Kildare 5-8156 or KI5-8156 or 545-8156 (the last two digits are uncertain) is, I presume, a phone number with the old style alpha prefix. The store is apparently no longer in existence:



I guess I need to either get a light meter or get much more proficient at accurately using the Sunny f/16 rule in all conditions... I found a scanned copy of the manual on Mike Butkus' website, although it differs very slightly from this camera. I've not read it carefully yet.

 

[Rob MacKillop]

Looks good, and you will learn many good photography skills with it, which might even improve your digital technique as well, as analogue photography did for me. Have fun!