What a Pal to collectors!
Toronto. In the April, 1932 edition of the International Photographer, this strange camera called the PAL KO or PALKO was advertised. It was described as a post card sized folder that focussed on ground glass. Never heard of it. In fact the folder plus ground glass sounded like a phoney to me.
Not so! The camera apparently originated in Britain around 1918. A closer look shows a deeper bottom area for two film spools. An elaborate arrangement pulled enough film up for a shot, then moved it into the take up spool to let the ground glass drop in to the film plane for the next shot. And the film exposure size could be masked to a half or a third economizing on film.
The reason I never heard of a PALKO? They had a rather small production run over the years and those cameras remaining are very rare. The article on the Red Bellows site explains the history of this unusual folder and how two people on two continents were said to be the designers!
A big thank you to my good friend George Dunbar for spotting this interesting advertisement and sharing it with us,
