Sport (Cnopm)
The Russian ‘Sport’ camera is the series production model of a prototype camera called ‘Gelveta’. The Gelveta was designed and built by A. O. Gelgar between 1934 and 1935. It is the earliest known production 35mm SLR camera ever to be built. The actual launch date of the ‘Sport’ is somewhat uncertain, however it was in series production by 1936 and must undoubtedly be one of the two earliest generally available SLR cameras using the 35mm film format, the other being the German Ihagee Kine Exakta, launched in 1936. It was manufactured by the Soviet camera factory Gosudarstvennyi Optiko-Mekhanicheskii Zavod, The State Optical-Mechanical Factory in Leningrad. GOMZ for short. The camera name is engraved in Cyrillic on the finder housing above the lens: Спорт. — 35mm SLR camera for 50 exposures 24x36mm in very fine and fully working condition, N-10 lens 3.5/5cm no.12847. — B+ — 1938 — 12847
