My dad bought a Rolleicord camera just before he left for China. His new camera cost him $800 (today's rate). That was a lot of money for a 26-year-old first lieutenant in the U.S. Navy.
The Rolleicord, a twin lens, medium format camera was used by amateur photographers in the years between World War I and II. The camera captured images in black and white on 120 film format, producing a 2 ¼ x 2 ¼ inch negative. The Rolleicord took sharp photos with good bokeh.
Stationed in China from 1935 to 1937, my father took photos of Shanghai and Hong Kong. His black and white photo of Chinese junks with their triangular sails hung on a wall of our 1950’s home. Those junks sailing in the moonlight refashioned our prosaic one-story home into an adventure in China. I didn’t know where the boats were going, but I pretended that my daddy sailed off on one of those little boats and would someday sail back to me. My father never came back, but he did leave me his camera.