Are Old Brownie Cameras Worth Anything

Today, the Leica A is regarded mostly as the sine qua non of well-heeled Leica collectors. Certainly its value lone puts it in that category. However, the Leica A is still a pretty adept picture show taker, and a fun, pocketable, user-collectible for those with deep enough pockets. A clean Leica A with a 50mm f/three.five Elmar sells in the $1600-$2200 range, but truly mint examples with a iv-digit or iii-digit series number bring much higher prices, and those with the same rare lenses have sold in the $50,000-$100,000 range.

2) Kodak Brownie--1900

If any single camera tin can claim to take created the snapshot, that common, unpretentious memento of things as they are, it is the immortal Kodak Brownie box photographic camera introduced to the earth at the plow of the terminal century in Feb, 1900. It was neither the first box camera, nor the offset camera to employ newspaper-backed curlicue film with numbers on the dorsum (that was the 1892 Bull'south-Eye Photographic camera made by the Boston Camera Company, later acquired by Kodak). Nevertheless, by offering a simple, competent, easy-to-employ, daylight-loadable camera at the and then-unprecedented price of $ane, and putting a brilliantly conceived mass-marketing plan behind information technology, Kodak was literally able to sell a camera to practically everybody, and to motivate millions to purchase it. The Brownie'southward success was unprecedented--in the first year alone, over 150,000 cameras were shipped, three times the previous record. To get a clearer idea of the touch on of the Brownie, check out one of the many timelines of the 20th century and go to the twelvemonth 1900. Right upwards at that place along with such momentous events as Max Planck's formulation of the quantum theory and the publication of Sigmund Freud's The Interpretation of Dreams is Kodak's introduction of the $1 Brownie camera!

The Credibility got its name from artist Palmer Cox'southward whimsical cartoon versions of Brownies--"hard-working Scottish sprites or elves who did household chores"--that were equally popular in the 1880-1920 period as Mickey Mouse is today. Some have conjectured that the proper noun was an oblique tribute to Frank A. Brownell, who was responsible for its design and manufacture, only this is non the instance. In whatever event, the Brownie is about as unproblematic and basic as a camera tin can get--an simulated leather-covered cardboard box, with wooden film carrier, measuring nearly 3x3x5". It has a simple fixed-focus f/11 meniscus lens, and metal rotary shutter with a single speed of nigh 1/35-i/50 sec plus T. There isn't even a viewfinder--like the original Kodak of 1888.

Despite its modest specs, the original Kodak Brownie did score one extremely important historical distinction--it pioneered No. 117 film, thus making information technology the world's get-go 21/4x21/iv" rollfilm camera. The 117 size, essentially six exposures of 120 motion picture on a narrower flanged coil, is long defunct, but the glorious 21/4 square rollfilm format is still very much alive.

Ads stressed it could exist "operated by any schoolboy or girl" and kids were urged to join the Brownie Camera Club, which had no initiation fee, and whose object was "to increase the involvement of American boys and girls in matters pertaining to photography." Kodak ran movie contests and awarded prizes. A whorl of film, called a "Transparent-Moving-picture show Cartridge," six exposures of 21/4x21/4" price 15 cents, a box of newspaper, 10 cents, and a Credibility Developing and Printing Outfit, 75 cents. At the bottom of many ads was a small box with the message, "Ship a dollar to your local Kodak Dealer for a Brownie Camera. If there is no dealer in your expanse, send united states a dollar and we will ship the photographic camera promptly." With the arrival of the Brownie, anyone could have photographs of everything from special occasions to everyday life, and do so inexpensively. The era of the snapshot had dawned and the earth would never exist the aforementioned.

Today, an original Brownie photographic camera with "shoebox" dorsum cover and accessory viewfinder is a rare bird indeed and a collector's prize valued at virtually $2000. The later, improved version with hinged dorsum, as well a primo collectible, sells for about $300-$500 with original winding key and box. The long-running #2 Brownie (1901-'33), that took 120 film and had a 21/4x31/four format, is a nice user-collectible that sells for $35-$50 and is recommended to anyone who wants to experience shooting with a archetype box photographic camera.

one) The Kodak--1888

The Kodak, the first camera marketed by The Eastman Dry Plate and Film Company of Rochester, New York, is, in the opinion of many experts, the well-nigh historically important series-product camera ever fabricated. The only cameras that rival it in historical significance are the one-off or limited-production creations of photography's great pioneers, Niepce, Daguerre, and Fox Talbot. What makes this humble-looking box camera then pivotal and consequential is not its ingenious construction or technical luminescence, both of which are noteworthy, simply the idea information technology embodied--creating a camera capable of producing satisfying photographs in the easily of an ordinary person having no particular technical skill.

When the Kodak was announced in 1888, photography had progressed from the daguerreotype and wet plate days when photographers literally had to prepare their own plates, just it was still an arcane pursuit requiring considerable expertise and dedication, particularly in the darkroom. What the Kodak offered, for the then-handsome sum of $25, was an unintimidating, easy-to-apply, portable camera with no adjustments that was pre-loaded with roll motion-picture show sufficient for 100 exposures. When y'all were finished shooting the roll, y'all shipped the camera back to Eastman in Rochester, along with $x. They developed the film, transferred each negative to a sheet of glass for contact press (because the 23/4"-wide "stripping picture show" was mounted on a non-transparent newspaper backing), made i impress from each good negative, reloaded the photographic camera with film for 100 more exposures, and returned it to the owner. In the context of the 19th century, the Kodak was the world's first successful point-and-shoot camera, just it does not qualify equally the starting time 1-time-use photographic camera because you lot got your original camera back. More importantly, it was the camera that actually created the modern photofinishing manufacture.

The man behind the Kodak photographic camera was of course George Eastman, a man of considerable mechanical ability and one of the great conceptual and marketing geniuses of all fourth dimension. The actual patent for the Kodak (Patent #388,850, September 4, 1888) bears his proper noun, but information technology incorporates several ideas used in Eastman's Detective Camera of '86 that was designed past Eastman and Franklin M. Cossitt, an employee. Some other pregnant predecessor of the Kodak that provided vital elements of its blueprint was the Eastman-Walker roll holder of '85, one of the kickoff rollfilm backs that may have been inspired past Leon Warnerke's before roller-slide holder, which too used stripping moving-picture show. The Kodak, manufactured for The Eastman Dry Plate and Motion-picture show Company by George Brownell of Rochester, New York (who may besides take had a hand in its production engineering), is a wooden-bodied box camera clad in Turkey morocco with "nickel and brass trimmings and enclosed in a neat sole leather case with shoulder strap."

Described every bit "about the size of a big field glass," it measures 31/4x31/4x61/2" and weighs 1 lb, x oz. It produced circular pictures 21/2" in bore on 23/iv"-wide flexible ringlet film, had no frame counter (y'all had to count the number of turns when winding the film-advance key!) and no viewfinder--y'all aimed it with the help of two lines, in a 5 pattern, engraved into the height. The lens, contained in a unique barrel-type shutter that revolved on an centrality parallel to the film plane, was a 57mm f/nine Rapid Rectilinear. Based on the format it was a wide angle, which gave proficient depth of field, only image quality in the corners of the field would have been poor, and then the cornerless circular format fabricated sense technically. The shutter, which was manually cocked with a pull string, provided a single shutter speed of about ane/25 sec, but a felt plug, which fitted on the forepart of the camera, could be used for making timed exposures. The shutter release push was on the left, a tripod socket oddly placed on the top--simply with no viewfinder this hardly mattered!

Despite its Spartan simplicity, aplenty price, and the inconvenience of having to return the camera for processing, the Kodak was a phenomenal success considering information technology was the beginning camera that enabled anyone to take pictures, and information technology was aggressively marketed with a vivid advertising entrada. Eastman'southward astute grasp of homo psychology and motivation is evident in these quotes from an '88 Kodak ad, "Everyone who can wind a lookout man tin use the Kodak Photographic camera...No tripod, no focusing, no adjustment whatever..."

In '89, information technology was: "1) Pull the cord. 2) Turn the key. 3) Press the button. And and then on for 100 pictures." This was later refined into the greatest photographic advertizement slogan of all fourth dimension, "Y'all printing the button, nosotros do the rest." Those also impatient to send their cameras to Rochester could purchase darkroom-loadable 100-exposure picture show spools for $2 apiece, and develop and print their ain film, or send the exposed film back to Rochester and have it processed and returned with a fresh coil for $x. More than any other single camera, the Kodak helped to create the mod photographic manufacture by transforming the human action of taking pictures into a universal man experience.

An original Kodak Camera, one of the Holy Grails of camera collecting, now verges on beingness a museum piece. Early on barrel-shutter models in proficient condition sell in the $4000-$5000 range, though a actually pristine and complete case with case and instruction manual could easily fetch much more than. Later models with a "safety-pin" metal-bladed shutter are worth less, but are still scarce and collectible.

The Top 20 Cameras Of All-Time
1) The Kodak--1888	xi) Rolleiflex (Original Model)--1929
2) Kodak Brownie--1900	12) Hasselblad 1600F--1948
three) Leica A--1925	xiii) Contax Southward--1949
4) Kine Exakta I--1936	14) Sony Mavica--1981
5) Leica D (Or II)--1932	fifteen) Asahiflex IIB--1954
six) Polaroid 95--1948	16) Zeiss Contax Ii - 1936
seven) Kodak Super Six-20--1938	17) Rolleiflex Automat - 1936
8) Minolta Maxxum 7000--1985	18) Hansa Canon - 1935
9) Konica C35AF--1979	19) Reflex-Korelle - 1935
10) Leica M3--1954	20) Kodak Instamatic 100 - 1963
What would you have added to or subtracted from Jason'south Top twenty list? Share your opinions, and your favorites on the Pinnacle 20 Cameras Forum at www.shutterbug.com