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Saturday, June 29, 2013

Leitz Tiltall with Removable "Tiltall" head

If there has been a single plaint these years regarding the Marchioni brothers' design, it is the non-removable Tiltall head. And for about that same length of time there has been a rumour that Leitz had played with a short lived version with a removable head. I had never yet seen one.

Thanks to a TEP Handle inquiry from Alan Abramowitz (http://abramowitzstudio.com) and his photographic proof above, we have our evidence (click to enlarge).  What history we have come by seems to suggest that the brothers begin Tiltall as a head-only design, but once attached to its body, both the Marchioni and the iterations that followed - with the Leitz exception above - Unifoto and its brother, Star-D; Omicron and presently, KingHome - all have stayed with a fixed head design.  Thank you again, Allan for your photos.  If others have discovered some Tiltall variants in their travels, please drop us a jpeg to post.

Another variation of the Leitz Tiltall from Mike Campos - here the head unthreads from the column itself.  Not, as above, from a more expected a 1/4-20 threaded bolt.  I have not tried to remove my head from the column with my four Leitz by unthreading - I will.  From the Uniphot to present, the column was glued into place.  Also, as above, Mike's Tiltall head has a separate label on the head - and a metal one at that.  All my Leitz Tiltall have only the "body" label - a couple, metal and a couple, paper.