A friend of mine gave me this camera. As Zeiss Ikon produced all kinds of cameras in all formats and systems they would have to have the "box" in their portfolio. Box cameras are the most primitive way to render the concept of a photographic device. It can be as simple as a box can be and therefore all manufactures willing to make money marketing low price and the least featured cameras: would go for the "box" concept. But not Zeiss Ikon.
Their box has personality ! It is simple but not poor. It has double exposure prevention, flash sync, cable release, shutter lock and... ok, a Frontar lens. It is a doublet, that means, two glasses glued together. Max aperture is f 9. It can go down to f 16 sliding a smaller diaphragm. Thinking the distracted photographers, when you pull the back to charge a new film it is kept still hanging attached to the front part by the strap ! How many Leica or Contax users have lost their backs ? Very clever idea.
By the time I am writing this I realized that I did not prepare any picture made with this camera in the pictures gallery. I definitely must do it.
Years of production of this model: from 1948 to 1956. The box concept (borrowed from Kodak) started in Zeiss Ikon and its ancestors back to 1926 (Goerz).