Sunday 18 December 2016

Don't see many of these-replaces a bit of black paper!

The subject of today's ramblings is shown below and this one has a rather chequered background, I acquired the item some years ago and it is a spring steel half moon cover that snaps onto the 32mm column of the Valoy 1 enlarger. The covering is dead matt felt both sides. It can be fitted to any 32mm column- provided that you are making prints that send the head up by 40cms, plus the depth of the column foot. I gather from some authorities that it originally came with the Valoy 1 and quickly located the head at a height that gave a full frame 8x10 print. I am more inclined to suggest that it's main use is in limiting reflection of light from the bright metal columns beloved of Leitz. The use of  the R word (Rare) is far too frequent in Leica literature,but I have never seen another, nor an illustration.

In the magnificent book Leica Collectors Guide (Hove-1994 edn.) on page 324 is listed an item with the code word  VIPRO which is a New York item described as Light Protection Tube for the Focomat 1b but, if used in the way described, the tube is longer than the baseboard to split pin distance on a Focomat. However,the spillage of stray light may have been negligible at low positions of the head.



M2 for comparison of size only!

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