[Leica] OT: A "Beauty" of a story...

[dsy at furnfeather.net (David Young)]

Caution:  A fun story, with no Leica content.


When I was 10 or 12 years of age (in the long, long ago)  I developed 
a nasty habit of taking my Dad's camera's apart, to see what made them 
"tick".

In the late 1980's, Dad brought me his old "Beauty Six", a 620 film 
"folder".  It was in it's original box and with it's original 
"never-ready" case. He said that I might as well have the camera, as 
(a) he'd hardly ever used it, and (b) of the six cameras he'd owned, 
it was the only one I'd ever got back together!

Last February, I'd posted this little story, on the LRflex (Leica 
Reflex http://www3.telus.net/~telyt/lrflex.htm) list and promptly 
forgot about it.

Now fast-forward to this past week.  Rose and I returned home from 
our Christmas/New Years jaunts, visiting friends and relatives, to 
find a note from a chap in Paris, who had found my post, from last 
year, in the LRflex archives.

It turns out that he is an editor of the Camerapedia (part of, or 
similar to the Wickipedia) and he was researching the "Beauty Six", 
the one camera of my Dad's, which I had managed to put back 
together!  He gave me a link to his 
article  (http://camerapedia.org/wiki/Beauty_Six ) and I was both 
surprised and excited to learn that only two surviving examples of 
this 1953 camera are known to exist... and thus, mine might be the third!

So I took numerous photos, and sent them to him.  The day before 
yesterday, I got a reply from him, saying that the camera I have is 
not the rare 1953 model... but an earlier 1950 model, by a different 
maker, which is even more rare!  Until I contacted him, only one 
surviving example had been known to exist, and now that number is two!

He has updated the Camerapedia article on the Frank Six (the later 
version of the 1950 Beauty Six) to cover my camera. This article is 
now illustrated with several photos.

http://camerapedia.org/wiki/Frank_Six

The gentleman has asked for more photos of my Beauty Six, which I 
will, of course, send him.  Thus, the make-up of this page may 
change, over the coming weeks.

For those who are interested in more photos, now, I have set up a 
small web-page about my "Beauty Six", which can be found at:

http://www.furnfeather.net/Personal/six/Beauty.htm

I don't think that ownership of this beast will ever bring me fame or 
fortune, but the discovery of the heritage of my Beauty Six has 
certainly made the week interesting!  It's one story which I wish I 
could tell my Dad!

Thanks for reading.

Cheers!