Steinheil Casca I
The Casca I camera, made by Steinheil, is certainly a unique-looking camera. There is really only one other camera ever made that it resembles and that would be the Casca II produced about a year later.
Made in 1948, the Casca I (which derives its name from Carl August von Steinheil CAmera) is both a simple and surprisingly complex (and innovative) camera. At its most basic it is a 35mm viewfinder camera with interchangeable lenses. It has a cloth, focal plane shutter at the heart of the body that can be set to one of six shutter speeds between 1/25 to 1/1000 (plus bulb). This all sounds fairly basic, but upon closer inspection the Casca becomes even more interesting. For example, those six shutter speeds are not set by a dial atop the camera but rather a sliding lever located on the back of the camera, under the thumb of the photographer. The same knob is used for both film and advance or rewind, which involves a complex set of internal gearing. The Casca allows the changing of lenses, but it uses its own proprietary bayonet mount that not even the Casca II would be compatible with. Steinheil produced a total of four lenses for this camera. The standard lens was a 50mm f2.8 Culminar but there were also 85mm f2.8 and 135mm f4.5 Culminars as well as a wide angle 35mm f4.5 Orthostigmat. Speaking of different focal lengths, while the Casca I has an impressive viewfinder for its era, it did not support any focal lengths other than the 50mm. Casca I lenses had a geared base which connected to a gear in the dial on the face of the camera and allowed focus to be adjusted by rotating a wheel housed in that same dial. It is sort of similar in a way to how early Nikon rangefinders have a focus wheel on the face of the camera, albeit set at a higher position than with the Casca I. Finally, the Casca I has a hinged back door which swings up for easy film loading. Keeping in mind the year this camera was introduced and remembering that Leica wouldn't introduce a hinged back door until 1954's Leica M3, this is a noteworthy feature for the Casca to boast about.
The Casca I sold for about $320 brand new on the U.S. market. In 2022 dollars that amounts to a bit over $3900! The Casca I was not a cheap camera, made all the more remarkable given that WWII had ended only a few years prior and Germany's economy was still very much trying to recover and get running again.
Steinheil never made many Casca cameras, model I or II. Our research indicates that total production numbers in the hundreds, not thousands. A bit of a rare diamond this one is.
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