Braun/Paxette IIM shown with Steinheil Munchen 45mm f2.8 Cassarit. Staeble-Choro 38mm f3.5 and Gossen Pilot light meter.

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The time was Sept. 29 1957 to be exact, I was born. Two years later Dad came home from a visit to the local McKewen's Photography Studio (owned by Bill Hansen) in town with a new camera. It was a Braun Super II also known as a Paxette Super II. Why Dad's said Braun and others said Paxette I'm still trying to track down. (the best theory has to do with sales through military PX's) Anyway Dad proceeded to put that camera in my face at every birthday party, family get together, outing, and Christmas (although not as bad as the couple of times he used the Movie Camera with the 5)150 watt bulbs to give us a tan in December) So with this early exposure to such a fine little German camera is it any wonder that even though I got a couple of Kodak 127 Star something cameras as I grew up I always wanted to use Dads. Dad was very smart all those photos he took were on Kodachrome so they still look great.
Finally when I signed up for a photography class in my Sophomore year of High School, Dad grudgingly agreed to let me use it for class. At least until he was sure I would stick with it and could get my own camera.
My photography teacher was a Nikon F snob and put down my little rangefinder, but I won an honorable mention in the Inland Empire High School Photo contest with a print of two old wagon wheels sinking into the brush along a creek. The little Braun took great photos.
Well, it came to pass that I bought a Ricoh/Sears 35mm SLR and a few screw mount Sears lenses, and on to a number of other consumer grade SLR's (none taking as high a quality photos as the Braun) before getting a Canon AE-1 in college which as you can see from my Canon page stuck.
I never forgot that little Braun Super II and have started to collect them I have close to a dozen most are Super II's and a couple of the other models of Braun Paxettes. I am even teaching myself how to do all the maintenance on these camera's see the photo captions for details of each of the Brauns in my collection.
I will to soon inherit My Dad's Braun Super II. It will be carefully serviced and kept in a display case to be passed down to my son when he can appreciate it.

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