The very special car enthusiast and his treasure
04/26/2016
The scene is familiar with a wide variety of automobile collections. Most people want to have the car or cars of their desire in 1:1 scale in their garage. Others fill showcases with 1:43 or 1:18 scale models, while others pile up sales brochures or car magazines of all kinds.
A fan of very special cars from the fifties, unfortunately unknown to us, probably put together a very special collection quite deliberately, but by chance. On his excursions or trips at the beginning of the fifties, he always took a 4.5x6 cm bellows camera with a fixed 75 mm lens, presumably Zeiss-Ikon, and another camera with a 5.5x5.5 cm negative.
If he saw an automobile somewhere with a special body or simply a very rare specimen, he probably had the owner position it as ideally as possible so that he could photograph the car in relatively open surroundings. He certainly needed a lot of patience for this, as the owners were probably not always on site at the time.
The black and white negative with the corresponding contact copy (many still with the familiar deckle edge) was placed in an envelope with a precise description of the vehicle. Detailed information on the model, year and even the exact date and location of the photo, as well as the owner's name, were noted. Around 200 such envelopes were collected over time.
The unfortunately anonymous amateur photographer probably died years ago, but thankfully his estate only changed hands around 30 years ago and in Ferdinand Hediger he found someone who continues to cherish this treasure.
One of the great advantages of analogue photography over the digital imaging process is that it is still possible to tell at a glance and without special equipment what a photograph is about. You can always find an enthusiast for a box full of prints, enlargements and negatives of cars, motorcycles or even railroads. The same box, but filled with CDs or DVDs that perhaps cannot be "opened" straight away with the computer available, will probably disappear into the garbage all too quickly.
So a lot of automotive cultural assets of this kind will be lost today, but also in the future. What a pity!
At least this treasure could be saved, a first selection was shown in SwissClassics Revue 2/2016, more will follow in future issues.
Do you have similar treasures at home? Then get in touch with us, we'll make sure they all survive us!
