This Realist 45 was my very first realist-format camera, and is therefore dear to my heart!!! It originally sold for something like half the price of the 1041/1042 models and yet has a much easier user interface to use -- other than not having a rangefinder. In my opinion, it's tied with the Kodak stereo camera for being the very easiest to use among the 50's stereo cameras I've used so far (other than for close-ups where a rangefinder is very helpful). It has the viewfinder at the bottom for the clever and useful forehead'ing sort of steady camera support, a ratchet-lever film advance that auto-cocks the shutter, a LARGE image in the viewfinder, shutter/lens settings are on LARGE knobs, and are easy to adjust, etc. Because it doesn't have a rangefinder, it *should* have easy to use DOF scales, which it doesn't. It's DOF scale (top-left in second photo from the top) is hard to read with red lettering, and not next to the f/stop knob. That's its only pragmatic user interface flaw when compared to the competition in the same era (and it's possible that the red lettering was easier to read when it was new).

As can be seen in the last photo above (photo of the lower right corner of its bottom plate), it was actually manufactured in Germany by Iloca and was identical to the Iloca Rapid 3.5 stereo camera (except for the nameplate).