Rollei used to make beautiful, quality cameras, then this happened.  I don’t think they really had much to do with this basic snapper.

Big name

Rollei were a big name in cameras and made some beautiful examples which are highly sought after today, including a couple of very nice 110 cartridge-film format cameras, the A110 and E110 in the early 1970s, both of which had highly-regarded Carl Zeiss Tessar lenses.  Those cameras were also super-expensive and didn’t sell very well.  In perhaps not-unrelated news the company was also in a colossal amount of debt and ownership changed hands.

Big Trouble

One obvious change was the switch to cheaper products it was hoped would sell better.  The Telepocketline 300 “by Rollei” was made in Singapore and is identical to the Honeywell Telepocketline 300 – which doesn’t quite conjure up the same air of striking design and quality engineering.  Of course a simple glance at it would have dispelled any illusions anyone had that Rollei has anything to do with its design.

Tiny price

The major advantage of something being an ill-thought-of piece of junk (in comparision to earlier Rollei models) even when it was new mean that now they are super cheap.  Their earlier cameras go for a lot more pounds than 3, but probably take better pictures, too – maybe I will find out one day, but for now, it’s over to the gallery.

Well the old familiar pick tinge returns with the 30-year-old 110 film, plus a few other odd colours.  I promise that yellow-looking snow is just the film.  I think the snow did this camera quite a few favours, given that the snowy pics are the only ones that came out very well – it needs a lot of bright light to take a decent picture.

Just one more 110 camera to go, unless I get hold of another one in the meantime.  The next one came with an unused film already inside it, so I won’t be using the Super Pink 100 next time!