The Finch Formerly Known As Gold

28 May 2007

You're on your own finding film

Actually, these contraptions don't take film, but polished silver plates. Either way, they won't have 'em at Walgreens.

But oh, the camera:

One of the world's oldest cameras has sold to an anonymous bidder at auction for almost 600,000 euros.

The daguerreotype camera, made by French firm Susse Frères no later than 1839, was found in a German attic and sold at a Vienna auction house.

Bids came from around the world for the daguerreotype, said by an expert to be the only remaining Susse Frères model. [T]he discovery ... in a Munich loft where it had lain undisturbed since 1940, prompted a frenzy of interest.

I don't expect this museum piece to be put to work any time soon, but there are people working with daguerreotype even today, and the process remains as it was in the 1830s.

(Via photographer Lindsay Beyerstein.)

Posted at 12:34 PM to Entirely Too Cool