One of my most cherished antique pieces is our circa 1920s Kodamatic No. 3A folding pocket camera we acquired a few years ago. We paid far less than the equivalent of what it would have cost brand new.

It was probably around $600 in today’s dollars at the time as it is a fancier model since it has the autographic back on it, which means there’s a little door you open so you can use a stylus to write directly on the photos. How neat is that?

As far as I know it still works, but unlike this collector, we’ve never actually used it to take pictures. I don’t even think we have pockets big enough to put it in anyway! Either way, I just like how it looks in the curio cabinet.

Like with all my other antiques, I sometimes like to daydream about what sort of people owned it and what sort of photos they may have taken with it back then.

They probably took loads of pictures of their friends and family…

Boys doing boy things…

And girls doing girl things…

Men doing men things…

And women doing women things…

And dogs doing dog things…

I’m sure they took lots of photos of local places like downtown where all the action was going on…

If they lived around here then they probably went to Salt Lake City to take pictures…

Even if they didn’t live nearby, I’m sure they most likely visited the same places we like to visit, like Yellowstone…

Where they could see tourists doing tourist things…

And park rangers doing park ranger things…

And, like us, they probably cursed at the road conditions along the way…

And at the traffic jams caused by other tourists getting all excited just over seeing more boring buffalo…

On the way home they probably stopped at the drug store for some headache powder after dealing with all that…

I mean, they couldn’t get the good stuff anymore thanks to prohibition so… yeah. I imagine that’s probably what sort of things they took pictures of.

Ah, the good old days. 🙂