"Spy camera"

How secret agents once photographed secrets

Collector Kernstock in his camera museum

(Bild: Antal Imre/Imre Antal)

Cameras are Alexander Kernstock's great passion. The collector from Obergrafendorf has also collected some very special and curious pieces in his private museum. 

It all started a decade ago when I discovered an old Yashica FX-D with flash, manual and bag at a flea market," explains Alexander Kernstock. His collection, which is probably unique in the whole country, currently comprises more than 1500 cameras from many different manufacturers worldwide.

On the trail of spies and detectives
His most unusual and oldest photographic equipment: a French spy or secret agent camera from the beginning of the 20th century and its English counterpart from the late Victorian era in London in the 1890s. What was standard equipment for Sherlock Holmes detectives back then makes us smile today. "The camera invented by a certain Jonathan Fallowfield was certainly not inconspicuous. It was disguised as an oversized wooden briefcase or an oversized parcel with a peephole," smiles the young collector from Obergrafendorf. Nevertheless, the "Facile Camera" stimulates the imagination and catapults you back into the dark, gas-lit side streets of the Empire. And suddenly Jack the Ripper doesn't seem far away.

Exhibits document the history of photography

(Bild: Krone KREATIV/Imre Antal)

Museum in the old post office
The fact that the rare object of camera lust found its way across the canal to Alex Kernstock's museum is the stuff of a secret service thriller and is hidden in the mists of unwritten history. The curious museum in the former old post office in Obergrafendorf can be visited on Fridays (3.30 to 7 p.m.) and Saturdays (2 to 6 p.m.) or by appointment (Tel. [phone]).