2026-03-20-Manfrotto monopods

 

Sometimes collecting is a matter of persistence. 

    The Manfrotto “GRUPPO” 434SSB monopod (shown top) showed up one day at my local thrift store. They had a price tag of $25 on it. I had bought the lower Manfrotto Compact MMC3-01 monopod at the same thrift store for $3. So I asked, “Why so much?”They answered their “expert” had found it sold for $200 on the internet. I find experts—who almost never clerk in the thrift store, so are unreachable—hard to deal with. There is also the matter someone might actually pay them $25 for a 2.27 kg (5 pound) aluminum pole, so I decided to let the Gods-of-Collecting decide if I was going to ever own it. For weeks I would pick it up, check the price tag to see if they had come to their senses, and return it to the shelf. I did try various clerks to see if they would lower the price, but they said they were not authorized to change prices. I plodded on, week after week without much hope.    

    While you share in my sorrow—don’t worry, I obviously had a happy ending—let’s look at the neat features of the two monopods—starting with the leg section locks.

The Compact monopod has four leg section locks in the width of an adult closed fist. They are all toggles.

The GRUPPO has two levers that move down 90 degrees. They are a little wider from outer ends than the Compact’s four locks, but not as much as you might think.

Here the two monopods show their leg locks in the same shot.

Moving to the other end—the grip area of foam with strap—the grip area is at least twice as big on the GRUPPO (maybe because at times you will be using two hands). If you look closely the Compact monopod has a rubber cap on the camera threads. This is a great idea as occasionally you might accidentally plant the tripod screw end by mistake. If you are on concrete you might wreck it.

The Compact monopod sections have a shape that is not round. This keeps the locks in proper orientation. It also provides a large flat area to mark the designer(Manfrotto), model and where the tripod was actually made.

The much larger GRUPPO Manfrotto monopod is made of round tubing. The much larger diameter allows room for engraving. It also indicates the monopod was made in Italy.

    Examining the  leg clamps closer in this side view you can see one side of the clamp has a bolt that attaches the entire clamp to the upper length of the tubing, while the lower section (to the left) is spring loaded to force the clamp open when the toggle pressure is released.

    In this top view of the toggle clamp release arms you can see at their hubs they are held to only rotating 90 degrees by cast in “stops”. This style of positive held or released kind of toggle is one big reason Manfrotto movie and television equipment became a World standard. Manfrotto design and manufacture is absolutely bullet-proof.

    In this bottom view of the leg clamps you can see the entire assembly is bolted on to the tubing with a nut you can tighten, while the clamp action has brass washers held on by spring thread washers. These spring actions combine with the toggles to tighten and loosen the casting on the legs section that can slide out and be locked at any point. There are times a monopod will be adjusted to work from a sitting position, while other times you need as much height as you can get to be above people standing in front of you.

    I must confess I didn’t understand the GRUPPO’s camera/mount thread. In the dim thrift store—OK, it wasn’t that dim—all I could see was a ⅜ inch stud. I supposed to the clerks that the GRUPPO was useless unless you had a head attached (to be fair to me, there are more heads that use ⅜ inch mounts than cameras). Turns out the GRUPPO has perhaps the only retracting ⅜ inch stud in existence. The outer ⅜ shell can be pressed down to reveal a ¼ inch stud in the middle that most cameras can attach to.

Also, being fair to me, that dratted stud does not come up again. It has been suggested you might be able to find something like a section of rubber tube that could “catch” the small amount of threading so you could haul it up. I have tried sewing machine oil and vibration but it hasn’t got the sleeve to come up.

    Looking at the other end of the Compact monopod you can see the almost pencil thick bottom section is capped with a relatively soft rubber boot.

    The GRUPPO has a hard plastic tip centered in a conical metal tip. The end is bigger than a golf ball.

That GRUPPO tip unscrews with one of the strangest actions I’ve ever encountered. The threads seem to float a bit as you unscrew. And then you find three nine inch lengths of steel that can fold out to make a tripod support to keep the monopod vertical. 

If you thought the unthreading action floated a bit, re-threading actually works better as you can spin the three extended legs to tighten the hub back into place.

The legs have small rubber tips. 

    As long as you don’t extend the tube sections the monopod is almost as steady as a small mike stand. I wouldn’t trust a video camera to stand all by itself, but maybe trapped between your sitting legs while you change the filter or mike it would be workable.

Here the GRUPPO is standing, but not expanded, with the Compact (also not expanded) leaning against it.

    Here both the GRUPPO and the Compact monopods are fully extended. The GRUPPO on its legs is 1.77 m (69½ inches) ground to mounting surface. The Compact is 1.46 m (57 inches). While on the specifications of the Compact, it is recommended for a weight of no more than 1.5 kg (3.3 pounds), It weighs 0.29 kg (0.64 pounds). Its collapsed minimum length is 39 cm (15.35 inches). The GRUPPO’s minimum length is 68.8 cm (27 inches). As far as I can tell, the GRUPPO was made in two versions around 1995. 

    “How did I end up with the GRUPPO?” you ask. I finally had my patience rewarded when I managed to hit the two clerks I have known the longest working together. They were equally shocked at the outrages price and wanted to know both what it was used for and who in their right mind would want it. They knew me well enough to answer the second part of those questions, but they suggested $10 would be way more than they would expect to get for it. Then, before I could argue, dropped the price to $5. I agreed to pay that and placed the GRUPPO on the counter along with a $3 camera we had already discussed (one clerk had said she has never priced a camera higher than $2). I handed over a $20 bill and got $15 dollars change.

    

Interesting, the GRUPPO 434SSB parts are still available. Notice how few parts there are. Also notice there is no real information on the adjustable ⅜ —¼ inch stud. 

The drawing is dated 2003—07—18, but that could be the latest version of the drawing, not the monopod itself.