| Founded: | c. 1939 ā Chicago, USA |
| Ā | Ā |
| Currently: | defunct |
The Rolls Camera Manufacturing Company was an American brand founded sometime in the late 1930s. The company produced several camera models; the cheaper ones like the unimaginatively named Rolls were made of Bakelite (an early plastic) while the premium, more expensive models were of metal construction.
It would seem logical to place Rolls as part of what is commonly known as the Chicago Clusterāa group of Chicago-based brands including Monarch, Spartus, Falcon, and Acro which are rumored to be just one large company since they produced a large number of near-identical Bakelite camerasāexcept for the fact that Rolls was sued by Jack Galter, the president of Spartus. Galter took the Rolls Camera Mfg. Co. to court on October 21, 1941 for violating patent US2220599: a ratcheting mechanism that prevents a camera’s film advance knob from unwinding. Rolls lost the lawsuit and was closed down a short time later, having only been in business for just a few short years.
McKeown, James M. and Joan C. McKeown’s Price Guide to Antique and Classic Cameras, 2001-2002. (Grantsburg, WI, USA: Centennial Photo Service, 2001), p 588.
United States Patent Office, Official gazette of the United States Patent Office, Volume 537, p 272.
The simply named Rolls is a viewfinder camera made of Bakeliteāan early plasticāintroduced by the Rolls Camera Mfg. Co. in 1939. This same camera was sold under a wide variety of names in many different variations, particularly by what is commonly referred to as the āChicago Cluster,ā a group of Chicago-based brand names that produced so many near-identical cameras that itās widely believed to be just one actual company.
