No. 3 Folding Pocket Kodak DeLuxe (1901-1903) 

This luxurious version of the No. 3 Folding Pocket Kodak has a covering of specially selected Persian Morocco leather, a bellows that is covered with bronze colored silk and a silver nameplate on one of the sides. The case also has silver fittings. In its day it cost $ 75, quite a bit more than the $ 57 one had to pay for the plain version with the same Bausch & Lomb Plastigmat f/6.8 lens and Bausch & Lomb Automatic shutter.

The camera was advertised as a perfect gift and it indeed looks great. After more than a century the silk still shines and the brown leather is soft.

Not many were produced during the years it was sold (October 1901 - 1903 in the U.S. and 1906 - 1908 in the U.K.) and today it is a very rare instrument indeed.

Considering that this is a luxurious camera it is rather funny to see a photo that was taken with it in 1901 or 1902 by  George L. Fordyce of Youngstown, Ohio. He climbed into a tree to take some pictures of a nest, 50 feet above the ground, of a Red-shouldered Hawk. The shutter was set at 1/100 th of a second. The best of the photos was published in "the Auk" of 1902, no. 2. No. 3 Folding Pocket Kodak DeLuxe in front of a 1902 general Kodak ad with a Kodak girl.