Klaus Rademaker arrived in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, April 21st and stayed with fellow EC member Gary Cullen in Tsawwassen, B.C. On the morning of the 23rd we drove 250km south through Washington State to Seattle and then on to Puyallup for the Puget Sound Camera Collectors Society annual camera show and sale. In Puyallup we met with fellow EC member Jim Hayes from Detroit Michigan who had flown in earlier that day.

We met Jim at our hotel where he showed us 2 Exakta VXIIa variations he brought with him. They were cameras where the Varex name had been removed and VXIIa re-engraved in styles different than Klaus or I had seen before (somewhat similar to A&R’s VXIIa version 4).

I had brought along a very early Kine I had bought from "The Leica Shop" in Vienna for Jim to see, its serial number is 481750 and contains many pre-production parts different from the later cameras (an article on this camera will appear in a future issue of The Exakta Times).

At the camera show Friday evening and Saturday we set up a table asking for photos of unusual Exakta equipment that I could use for my up-coming book on rare Exakta equipment. We had some response and I hope to be receiving a few photos for the effort.

As far as finding Exakta treasures at the show Klaus found a nice chrome VP Junior, a VX 1000 with "Made in Germany East" engraved into the rear top right cover (seems to be quite uncommon), and a postwar 66 in very nice condition with original box, papers, instructions and extention tube set.

Jim found a 9x12 Ihagee two shuttered duplex in very nice condition.

I was fortunate enough to get a near mint outfit containing a round magnifier Kine Exakta with original Ihagee box, an original Ihagee tube box and leather pouch for its 2.8 Tessar, a hood, a case, original instructions, a 4 1/4 inch Meyer Gorlitz New York 2.8 Trioplan with case and Isert’s Kine Exakta book in English! I was happy and did not need to find another thing!

We met 2 other Exakta collectors at the show, not EC members but it was nice to meet others with the same interests. One was Bob Reed who brought along an "Astraflex 55" that he found at an Oregon show, that’s a 1955 Exakta Varex VX that had its name changed by (we think) Sterling Howard Cameras, a large US camera store at the time. I already had one of these and this is the second to surface. Nice to know more than one was made.

The other Exaktaphile we met was John Sparrow who Klaus and I had met on the Internet, buying and selling on the eBay auction site.

That evening Jim headed to Seattle to stay overnight with a relative and Klaus and I drove back to Canada where he spent another week vacationing in the rare warm Canadian sun.

It was good to get 3 EC members together that live so far apart. It was decided that we would try and meet again next year at another North American camera show, maybe Chicago, Boston or San Francisco. Anyone else interested?