The Ricoh 500 is a brand name that has been around for years...
In the 50's Ricoh where producing 500 series cameras with "Triggermatic" winders built into the base plate. The Ricoh 500 brand was still in production as late as the early 80's and we have several different incarnations we regularly use.
This model is one of the first, not hugely popular or common in this country, but very popular in the US. This is another of my personal favourites, as soon as I picked up this camera I fell in love with it, the design and handling is superb, the trigger winder is probably the fastest form of manual wind available, the coupled rangefinder / viewfinder is clean and bright and the 4.5cm f2.8 lens is sharp and a joy to use with colour and black and white.
This was a high end hobbyist / semi professional camera from the boom time of late 50's America, produced by Ricoh they did market it world wide but nobody seemed to take to them as much as the Americans. I suspect this was partly due to costs as the camera and accessories where not cheap and post war the only real spending power for luxury goods remained within the US.
This camera came to usdirect from the original owner in the US as a complete set and had been sitting un used in a box at the back of a wardrobe for about 25 years, following a little cosmetic TLC to clean and restore the exterior, and a full service from the fantastic guys at Camera city, it now runs as good as new and produces photos of breathtaking quality.
As well as having a range of wide angle, telephoto and close up lenses available, we also have both the original Ricoh bulb flash system and an original and fully working Minicam Twinklite 35 which is again period to the camera.
For that finishing touch the whole system is contained in its original ever ready cases and transported in a period Rox attache camera case.
If you love your 50's rock 'n' roll dances this is the camera to capture your moves with. This is as authentic and original as kits come and as well as been a real conversation piece, also fits in perfectly during themed events .