Traduction de Manuel M

Perkeo means “Pygmy”, in German, which corresponds indeed to the appearance of this small camera.

Publicities of the time called the Perkeo “the Prince of the pocket cameras” They also insisted on the fact that the loading could be done “even with gloved hands”. This leaves to think that Voigtländer also aimed the feminine customer.

It was produced from 1931 to 1935.

The setting is automatic, it is enough to press on a button so that the camera opens and the bellows unfolds.
The focusing is made by means of an openwork serrated roller, and could be carried out the camera closed. The system of closing is the same one as that of the Inos II or the Prominent of the time: one pushes a small latch in shape of pedal towards the interior of the camera. This makes it possible to see the system of chain of the focusing and incidentally, the serial number of the camera.

Like the Virtus, the opening of the back is carried out by pinching of two lateral claws. A table of depth of field is fixed on the flap and two inactinic windows for the numbers of exposures are placed at the rear.

The Perkeo shares with the Prominent a system of baffles intended to evacuate the flow of air caused by the closing of the camera, so that the film remains perfectly in place. These 4 baffles are located in the receiving housing of the reels (2 by housing) and end outside the camera, on each side. They are visible on this picture.

The Perkeo could have a viewfinder with frame, like this one, or a optical view finder. In the first case, the camera did not have a crutch (whereas there is a socket for cable release….), in the second case the crutch exists and is located on before right of the flap.
The model with optical viewfinder was the higher version, with an additional price.

According to the versions, it could be provided with a shutter Compur or Embezet and lenses Skopar 4.5 or Héliar 3.5

The specimen presented is provided with a lens Skopar 3.5 of 55 mm focal distance and with a Compur shutter offering the pose B, T and speeds from of 1 until the 1/300 second. It unfortunately lost its characteristic braided leather belt.

I have a particular sympathy for this camera, on the one hand for itself and on the other hand because it was bought by my father at Bièvres in 1975 by Bernard Vial (for 450 Francs)

Voigtländer started again the name Perkeo for the model 6 x 6 launched in 1952