Post by hi224 on Jan 3, 2021 23:01:18 GMT
Several years ago William Fagan, a camera collector and photography historian in Ireland, came into possession of a 1930's vintage Leica camera that came with a partially used roll of film. Sometime later curiosity got the best of him and he enlisted the aid of a camera shop owner to develop the roll. What they found has sparked an Internet mystery.
While the roll contained 36 exposures only 23 were used. They document a road trip in Switzerland and the Lake Como area of Italy that took place somewhere between 1950 and 1952, more likely toward the beginning of that range. A man and a woman (and their dachshund) drive from Zurich, through St. Moritz, and end up visiting some towns along Lake Como, a journey of about 550km. Most of the photos show the woman, their car, or landscapes, with the man appearing in only one of them. As best can be told the woman seems to be in her late 20's, possibly early 30's, with the man about a decade older. One photo near the beginning shows the woman in Zurich next to a much older woman, possibly her mother.
William Fagan has enlisted the Internet's help in trying to identify the couple. While the woman's almost certainly dead by now and the man definitely is, the hope is that some family members might recognize them. All the clues as shown below are vague, at best.
The car is a late 1930's BMW 315 two-seat convertible, which was uncommon but not super-rare. Inquiries with BMW and with the Recaro auto-seat company, a corporate predecessor of which built the car's body under contract, have not narrowed anything down further.
The car's license plate is visible, and as best can be determined the issued in 1948 in southern Germany, possibly Munich but more likely Garmish-Partenkirchen. At the time the US military was occupying that part of Germany and handling bureaucratic affairs such as vehicle registrations, unfortunately records from that period are long gone.
There is some reason to believe that Leica shipped the camera to a dealer in Switzerland, although the identity of any buyers is even at this remote date confidential under privacy laws in the unlikely event they still exist.
Internet sleuths determined that one of the photos in Switzerland must have been taken from a particular floor of a still-extant hotel and visited the hotel to see if there were any records from that long ago. Nothing, of course.
The woman can be seen wearing one or more rings on her right hand, a custom that apparently is or was common in Germany. That would tie in with the car's registration. I'm not sure if that custom was popular in Switzerland as well. We can't see her left hand well enough to know if she had any rings on it.
The woman is wearing the same print dress in all the Lake Como photographs, indicating that they all date from the same day. More interestingly, the print contains saguaro cactuses, which although being everyone's stereotypical image of a cactus are found only in a small part of the southwestern United States. That does not mean that the woman was American, of course, but it possibly does make that more likely.
According to William Fagan, the way the photographer composed the pictures indicates a fairly high degree of photographic skill. Most likely the man took all of the images except the one in which he appears.
Irish Times article on the mystery:
www.irishtimes.com/life-and-style/people/an-irish-sleuth-s-quest-to-track-down-a-mystery-couple-1.4430772
William Fagan's latest update, rather technical but with all of the images shown in order and mapped. Some useful comments too.
www.macfilos.com/2020/12/22/swiss-roll-the-facts-of-the-70-year-old-photo-mystery-as-we-now-know-them/
While the roll contained 36 exposures only 23 were used. They document a road trip in Switzerland and the Lake Como area of Italy that took place somewhere between 1950 and 1952, more likely toward the beginning of that range. A man and a woman (and their dachshund) drive from Zurich, through St. Moritz, and end up visiting some towns along Lake Como, a journey of about 550km. Most of the photos show the woman, their car, or landscapes, with the man appearing in only one of them. As best can be told the woman seems to be in her late 20's, possibly early 30's, with the man about a decade older. One photo near the beginning shows the woman in Zurich next to a much older woman, possibly her mother.
William Fagan has enlisted the Internet's help in trying to identify the couple. While the woman's almost certainly dead by now and the man definitely is, the hope is that some family members might recognize them. All the clues as shown below are vague, at best.
The car is a late 1930's BMW 315 two-seat convertible, which was uncommon but not super-rare. Inquiries with BMW and with the Recaro auto-seat company, a corporate predecessor of which built the car's body under contract, have not narrowed anything down further.
The car's license plate is visible, and as best can be determined the issued in 1948 in southern Germany, possibly Munich but more likely Garmish-Partenkirchen. At the time the US military was occupying that part of Germany and handling bureaucratic affairs such as vehicle registrations, unfortunately records from that period are long gone.
There is some reason to believe that Leica shipped the camera to a dealer in Switzerland, although the identity of any buyers is even at this remote date confidential under privacy laws in the unlikely event they still exist.
Internet sleuths determined that one of the photos in Switzerland must have been taken from a particular floor of a still-extant hotel and visited the hotel to see if there were any records from that long ago. Nothing, of course.
The woman can be seen wearing one or more rings on her right hand, a custom that apparently is or was common in Germany. That would tie in with the car's registration. I'm not sure if that custom was popular in Switzerland as well. We can't see her left hand well enough to know if she had any rings on it.
The woman is wearing the same print dress in all the Lake Como photographs, indicating that they all date from the same day. More interestingly, the print contains saguaro cactuses, which although being everyone's stereotypical image of a cactus are found only in a small part of the southwestern United States. That does not mean that the woman was American, of course, but it possibly does make that more likely.
According to William Fagan, the way the photographer composed the pictures indicates a fairly high degree of photographic skill. Most likely the man took all of the images except the one in which he appears.
Irish Times article on the mystery:
www.irishtimes.com/life-and-style/people/an-irish-sleuth-s-quest-to-track-down-a-mystery-couple-1.4430772
William Fagan's latest update, rather technical but with all of the images shown in order and mapped. Some useful comments too.
www.macfilos.com/2020/12/22/swiss-roll-the-facts-of-the-70-year-old-photo-mystery-as-we-now-know-them/