Man buys 90-year-old charity store digital camera and makes superb discovery | UK | News | EUROtoday

A 90-year-old digital camera purchased for £10 in a charity store has sparked a contemporary thriller – after its undeveloped movie was full of post-war Swiss secrets and techniques. An eagle-eyed novice photographer, 72, noticed the Thirties mannequin Zeiss Ikon Baby Ikonta digital camera on a shelf within the Alabare second-hand homeless charity store in Wilton, Salisbury, in Wiltshire.

But again dwelling he was shocked to search out inside an uncovered 1956 Verichrome Pan 127 (VP) movie, so rushed spherical to see digital camera knowledgeable Ian Scott on the Salisbury Photo Centre – a PHOTO by Fujifilm retailer – to see if it may very well be developed. And it yielded a historic picture treasure trove displaying an unknown household and skiers with bibs sponsored by child milk maker Cow&Gate outdoors the Badrutt’s Palace Hotel, in St Moritz, Switzerland.

Now the digital camera purchaser and Ian are interesting to Daily Express sleuths for assist in figuring out these pictured within the fascinating black-and-white photographs.

There was a Cow & Gate Ski Trophy for alpine skiers throughout Switzerland within the Nineteen Fifties and because the movie was solely on sale from 1956, we guess the images have been snapped later that decade.

Baffled Cow & Gate stated of the photographs: “These are amazing, what a glimpse into the past! It’s so special to see Cow & Gate featured in memories like this. Thanks for bringing these unseen images back to life.”

Excited Ian, 61, has hailed the photographs “a fascinating window into a different world and time” however who took the photographs, why and when are nonetheless an entire baffling thriller.

He advised the Daily Express: “The exposed film has been inside that camera waiting for someone to unearth it for maybe 60 or 70 years – it’s so incredible that history was literally sitting there on a charity shop shelf.

“It’s simply superb that they have been in there 60 years and no person has seen them, not even the photographer who took them!

“Now we take pictures on a digital camera, you see it straight away but these were just lost.

“It does make you marvel what different kind of treasure troves are hidden in a digital camera, in a store ready to be developed.

“The man who spotted the camera didn’t even know there was a film in there. It wasn’t until he got home and he was sort of having a look at it that he kind of thought, I think there’s a film in there.

“He discovered this kind of treasure trove and it is now an thrilling thriller!”

The Zeiss Ikon Baby Ikonta was a compact, entry-level folding camera launched around 1930-1931, using 127 film, offering an affordable, simple way to capture photos.

One of the several black and white developed images shows a beaming woman in ice skates standing in front of an impressive snow-covered building Ian identified as the Badrutt’s Palace Hotel, in St Moritz.

The hotel was opened in 1896, with 112 rooms, 43 suites, eight restaurants and a spa and is still open to this day – with some luxury rooms costing as much as £17,000-a-night.

But the Kodak ‘panchromatic Verichrome Pan (VP)’ 127 film, inside the Zeiss camera, was introduced in 1956 – giving us a starting point from when the images could have been taken.

Other images show what appear to be the same family enjoying skiing in the mountains, all wearing the ‘Cow&Gate’ bibs with individual numbers for each competitor.

In some of the shots they are waiting to set off with skis and poles, while wearing winter outfits, goggles or sunglasses.

We assume the family are British as a separate photo appears to be taken of a manor house in the UK showing around 20 elderly women sat on fold-out chairs in a garden having tea and cake.

The man who bought the camera – a TV actor who asked us not to name him – said he was initially glad to pay £10 for it over Christmas as a “curio” as he’s a budding amateur photographer.

But he added: “It wasn’t till a number of days later, whereas fiddling about with it one morning, that I realised with delight it nonetheless had a movie inside!”

Ian advised us: “He simply kind of purchased it as virtually a paperweight. We have been going to attempt to get some movie for it and see if we will get some extra photos out of it and put it again to make use of.

“Now it’s given us a mystery. It’s really quite brilliant. We really hope someone out there recognises someone in the pictures and can tell us something about them.”

*Do you recognise anybody within the images, or have you ever ever discovered a hidden historic gem or mysterious artefact buried in plain sight in an vintage store, with an interesting story from the previous?

Email Chris.Riches@reachplc.com on the Daily Express and allow us to carry its forgotten story again to life.