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Linhof Serial Year List - Salomon Says





Recently I've acquired a few Linhof cameras. I got a 5x7 view camera from Oakland Museum's White Elephant Sale. Later I stumbled upon a Color Kardan 90 Jahre Jubalaeum edition on Craigslist. And more recently, I found a "baby Technika" 2x3 (6x9) at Oakland's East Bay Depot for Creative Re-use.

Not knowing much about Linhof large format cameras, I tried getting more info online, and came across a strange thread on the Large Format Photography Forum. Basically on this thread various Linhof owners ask a guy named Bob Salomon what year their Linhof was made. And the thread is over 100 pages long!

Sifting through that thread is mindnumbing. Why Bob doesn't just publish the list of serial numbers is beyond me. Maybe it's just nice to feel needed.

So I started compiling a spreadsheet of the serial numbers and the answer Bob gives. If you don't feel like spending a couple days reading this thread to get a hint as to the age of your Linhof, and don't feel like registering with this forum and asking Bob, you can use this spreadsheet and might be able to extrapolate the date of manufacture of your Linhof.

I'm titling the spreadsheet "Salomon Says" after Bob Saloman the man with the manufacture serial/date list.

Have a look: https://tinyurl.com/yycs2kjv (links to a Google Sheets)
(still in progress)
 
BTW: minor edits made to fix Soloman mis-spelling pointed out by reader Sabrina. Thanks and sorry as I hardly ever read comments. I do this blog for catharsis really. P.s. here's a dad joke I came up with on the very topic of Soloman/Saloman/other variations of the king of ancient times... Q: What's the wisest fish? A: King Salmon ... get it King Salmon and King Solaman are kinda close?! Well if you have to explain a joke it's not funny! But I still enjoyed telling it.
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Comments

  1. SabrinaFebruary 8, 2021 at 11:14 PM

    Thanks! What a great resource. BTW you misspelled Bob's name... it is spelled Salomon.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Michael HalberstadtFebruary 22, 2021 at 12:33 PM

    Oops, will fix. Guess the pun works either way as it's close enough to Simon Says :-)

    ReplyDelete

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