Kalimar AM

[rover]

Well, here is one for you. I pulled my fathers slides out of a closet today for the first time in 20ish years. They are 1960-65 vintage from his tour in the Navy. Beautiful shots mostly of Italy, Greece, Spain and France. They are in real rough shape though, alot of mold and stuff, I have to figure out if they can be cleaned. Some of the Kodachrome has kept well I might add. In the box too was his Kalimar AM. It was in very bad shape and I had to throw it out. It too was moldy and when I turned the focusing ring the lens fell apart in my hand. Too bad. Now I have to find out about this camera. It was a scale focusing viewfinder, 35mm. I kept the instruction manual and warrenty card which he kept. My father was was stationed for a short time in Chicago, he had written the location of a Kalimar authorized repair shop, 846 W Adams Street, in Chicago on the warrenty card. What is there now Francisco? So this is my new quest, learn about the Kalimar AM, and eventually I am sure that means an ebay search, and...

Here is what I know so far, I think:

Kalimar AM, from Kalimar Inc of St Louis Mo.
Documentation is printed in Japan though, so I assume that is a distributor, not a manufacturer.
Direct viewfinder right above the lens.
"Ultra Sharp 45mm Terionon F 3.5 Anastigmat Lens."
Shutter Speeds of 1/30 to 1/200 of a second.
A built in uncoupled meter.
Scale focusing, set estimated distance to subject on the lens.

So, has anyone heard of these cameras before?

 

[SolaresLarrave]

Adams Street... it's right in front of the Art Institute, and it's probably a bank. Let me do some research. My Chicago memory is still very small, and this sounds like it was way West of the loop.

I'm pretty sure Kalimar is still around, even if only as a marketer of the kind Vivitar is. In fact, the linear polarizer filter for my Canonet is a Kalimar.

😱 Things are getting weird here, huh?

 

[wierdcollector]

Yes, I've both heard of Kalimar AM and still own one. The only thing which doesn't work on mine is (like so many other metered cameras) the non-coupled meter. P.S. Never throw away a camera when you can always use it for parts. You can never have too many winding levers and rewind knobs. (Or you could always give it to me and I'll do my best to break, I mean fix it.) :^)

 

[rover]

Thanks Curt. There is a Kalimar A on ebay now. It looks like the same camera, I assume without the meter.

I didn't want to toss my father's. but it had corroded and was beyond anything I could imagine was repairable. The film crank and shutter release were seized. As I said the lens fell apart in my hand. It seemed to me that the mold just rotted it away.

I did a google search last night and came up empty about the AM. Though I did recognize the name as soon as I typed it into the search box from the recent Pop Photo article about the mirror telephoto lenses.