What can anyone tell me about 'Photo Plait?'

[Keith]

The current 'Oldest RFF Camera' thread has given me a renewed interest in my Leica 1a. I took a fresh set of photos of it the other day and was reminded of the little I know of it's history. When I won it in an Ebay auction it was claimed that the camera came from a collection in France before making it's way to the US through family connections of the seller.

On the base plate is a small plaque that was placed there by the original seller of the camera I assume ... and it says 'Photo-Plait, Paris.'

Does anyone know who Photo-Plait were and was it usual for some sellers to actually fix a plaque to a camera in this way ... it's been screwed to the base plate? I can only imagine someone's reaction to having this done to their new Monochrom by some well meaning dealer! 😀


The camera as it came:

The base plate and plaque:

 

[shimokita]

it's in French...

http://www.collection-appareils.fr/photo-plait/html/neo_chronoplait.php

Casey

 

[Keith]

it's in French...

http://www.collection-appareils.fr/photo-plait/html/neo_chronoplait.php

Casey

Thanks ... I'm surprised I didn't find that link while googling.

I translated the page and it tells me pretty much what I was looking for. 🙂

 

[Roger Hicks]

One other point is that while a very few dealers disfigured cameras with riveted-on plates, transfers were quite common -- sometimes inside the camera (e.g. on the base-plate on a Leica).

Imagine a dealer nowadays bolting a bloody great slab of metal to the baseplate of an M9 and then trying to sell it...

Cheers,

R.

 

[Muggins]

Irrelevant to Leicas (unless there was an Ur-Ur-Ur Leica, or perhaps an Ug-Leica) but at least one London shop (Westminster Camera Exchange, I think) had little black-painted brass plaques that could be pinned into wooden-bodied cameras such as the Kodaks of the day - circa 1911 in the case of mine. I must confess that I rather like the idea of knowing where a camera was sold 100 years ago, but then I'm a bit of a history geek.

Adrian

 

[Scrambler]

I wonder whether the plaque would have been more acceptable to Parisians than an unmarked Leica which might be presumed to have been bought in Germany?