It was, let's see, 1959 in Augsburg, Germany. I bought a Pentacon. It was very nice. You could actually see through the lens! If you could afford it, you could unscrew the lens and screw in another completely different one. You could also look through the new lens you had just mounted. What a revelation!
If you tripped the shutter, the viewfinder blacked out, leaving you to wonder what it was that so interested you that you were moved to make an exposure. Of course, all you had to do to renew the view was to cock the shutter. If you didn't do anything silly like take a picture, you could gaze through the lens all day.
It didn't really have enough features, though, so I soon traded it for an Exakta (which also blacked out when making an exposure) which had a film knife, allowing you to cut the cassette film short in order to develop a few frames without wasting the whole roll.
I felt pretty superior, having a camera with a built-in film knife, even though I never used it.