When you were young and you thought that a penny looked like it would fit inside a wall socket, your parents warned you not to. When you ignored them and did it anyway, you found out why. It hurt like hell! Well, imagine that the penny is actually a screwdriver and when you stick it into the wall socket, it's not on purpose but an accident. That's how I did it. There I was, a simple maintenance man redoing the wiring in the electrical lab and some dumb fool decides to set off a sonic boom three feet behind me. Well, being a normal person, I jumped, screwdriver slipped into socket and twenty-two thousand volts later, I'm flying through the air into a prototype teleported. I can assure you, having your body atomized while your body's still jerkin around ain't the most pleasant feeling. Well, the good news was the teleporter worked just right and I ended up on the other end all pieces attached. Bad news, the whole ordeal zapped my hair white and screwed up my physiology something fierce. Now I conduct electricity, form magnetic shield and can even whip up a thunderstorm when needed. I gotta tell ya, it's made this twenty-one years olds life PRETTY interesting.

In the 1940s, flash synchronization was still a fairly new concept. Early flash was done the same way as the old flashpans, by the "open flash" method. Open the shutter, set off the flash manually. The Mendelsohn Speedgun is an example of the electro-magnetic method of synchronizing flash, which was considered one of the least desirable, although among the earliest. A button pressed on the unit fires the flash and activates the solenoid, pressing the shutter release cable. The greatest problem with this system is precise synchronization had to be adjusted to the individual camera, and the solenoid was a tremendous drain on the batteries. The direct method for built-in synchronized shutters was much more popular, and that appears to be how this one was used. A previous owner had split then of a Kalart ASA to 2-pin sync cord to fit the socket of the Mendelsohn. The original instruction sheet and "consumer registration card" are included, stamped "FOR ARGOFLEX AND CIROFLEX." I got this one with one of my Ciro-flexes.