So you think your ZEISS IKOFLEX is broken? It might be time to think again!  I have a beautiful old IKOFLEX IIA camera by Zeiss that has been sitting on a shelf for over 20 years.  It belonged to my father, and I remember using it as a child (carefully!).  It took the most fabulous photos.... then we got a cheapo camera, stopped buying film for the IKOFLEX and there it sat - alone and sad on the shelf.  When my mother and I came to use it again it seemed that it had stopped working!  We could not get the shutter to fire.  We took it to a store in London that speciailised in vintage cameras (pah!) to see if they could repair it for us.   They kept it for 6 months, but did not repair it  - I wonder now if they even tried - as it turns out  they must have known very little about this camera...

Recently, I decided to sell the it - but did not know if it could be made operable again.  So I searched the web!  And found that it was NEVER broken!  There is a 'failsafe' to these cameras that prevents overexposure - a good idea but still.....Here is what I have learnt from surfing the web for the last couple of days.  I want anyone who has one of these cameras not to fall into the same trap I did!

If the film counter has gone past the 12 mark the shutter will not fire even if film is wound correctly and the shutter is cocked!  You have to push in the film counter with your finger and reverse it anti-clockwise till you reach the 1 mark.  Then you feel and hear a little click and the camera is ready to go again!  I can't believe I thought this was broken for over 20 years!  What a waste!  If anyone is out there having the same problem, I hope they find this solution.  The other trick I found elsewhere on the web relating to these cameras is how to get to the 1/500s exposure setting - it is located quite a way past the last setting (1/250).  You have to move the lever on over a 'hump' and then you can access 1/500s - but you must do this after having wound on the film but BEFORE  cocking the shutter as it can do damage to the spring mechanism if it is pushed over this hump with the shutter cocked!  I don't know why - but certainly it moves freely and happily to this position if the shutter is NOT cocked.

Well, I am still selling my camera in My eBay Store   I want it to go to a good home :-)