NHS-Con6 NY, NY
From Bill Kraus....

About 55 people attended from around the world, including Japan, Canada, France, Germany, England, Belgium and the Netherlands. The weather was nice in New York City, so there was no problem in getting around. The 57th street Holiday Inn proved to be a convenient location near the "A" train, which many of us took to Dietmar Machold's apartment Friday evening for a welcoming party. The hotel was also just a few blocks walk to his office where the Society convention was held on Saturday. The hotel was also the location of the Sunday camera show.

Dietmar was quite the host Friday, providing some fine wine and nibbles, and allowing us to see (and touch!) some of his very impressive collection. Not only Nikon rangefinder, but a rather nice display of early F, some Leicas, and a dazzling array of black bodies from several makers, including the elusive black Nikkorex F. Some of the photographs Dietmar allowed to be taken that evening can be seen in NSH Journal #60.

The Saturday meeting was opened by Bob at about 9:30, who thanked Dietmar and his assistant, Blake Flaherty, for her help in the outstanding arrangements. Our first speaker, Al Satterwhite, captivated the crowd with his presenta tion on "Behind the Scenes in Advertising" (with Nikons). This was followed by Rod Stines' interesting talk on "High Speed Photography at the Races", also with Nikons.

After lunch, a raffle was organized and the drawing for the door prizes began. Bob thanked members Tsuyoshi Konno, Fred Krughoff, and Doug Napier for their donations to this event. It was followed by a retrospective of NHS Con5 Tokyo, narrated by Bill Kraus and Roto-san.

Yuki Kawai moved the membership to the front of their seats with a report on a recently discovered very old Nikon Model One. While photographic evidence, provided by Nippon Kogaku to Yuki especially for our Convention, showed the camera to be incomplete, the top plate clearly identifled it as camera "6091!. The very first Nikon camera ever made!

The second presentation of the afternoon, by Peter Lownds, was the display and subsequent group fondling of two NASA cameras, an F3 250 shot which made two trips into outerspace, and a Hasselblad with undoubtedly similar credentials. This was followed by several other "show and tells", including the recently discovered Nikon S with factory rapid rewind.

As always, the fitting finale was from Tony "back page" Hurst. Unfortunately Tony could not make it, but his slide show, newly created for NHS Con6 came with our European continent. It was spectacular!

Saturday evening was a gathering of the clan at Fred Krughoff's loft, way down near Wall street, and not far from Dietmar's. After climbing four flights of stairs, we were warmly greeted by smaller dog Fred's bark, followed by a handshake from the "other" Fred who also occupies the place. Most of us then gathered around the keyboard, just like in the old days but, instead of singing, we watched as the "other Fred" showed off his software. We also got to see a row of black S2s. Very pretty.

Sunday was a lucky day for some of us at the show. One of our guys picked up a very nice black variframe finder, another found some really clean rangefinder camera instruction books, and yet another, believe it or not, found a shade for a Nikkorex auxiliary wide angle lens with case in mint condition!

Sunday was also a special day in New York for other reasons. Not only did we have the Nikon Historical Society in residence and the NYC old camera show, we also had a parade celebrating the 50th anniversary of the state of Israel, the Turkish day parade, and the 9th avenue food fair. Needless to say, it was a driver's nightmare, with a good section of mid-Manhattan's 5th, 7th and 9th avenues closed off. We are still waiting to hear if Al Brody ever got away. No one has heard from Al since. And Bob has his own horror story about trying to get to LaGuadia! Yet a good time was had by all! See you at NHS-Con7.
Bill Kraus.

Reprinted from NHS Journal #60, June 30,1998