chicago

Monarch Royal Reflex

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Monarch Royal Reflex

The Monarch Royal Reflex is a pseudo-TLR (a box camera that superficially resembles a twin lens reflex camera) made of an early plastic named Bakelite and introduced in 1939 by the Monarch Manufacturing Company. Monarch (sometimes also spelled “Monarck”), was just one of a many names that made up the Chicago Cluster—a collection of Chicago-based camera brands including Spartus, Acro, and Falcon which appear to be multiple fronts for a single manufacturer. As such, the Monarch Royal Reflex was also sold under different names such as the Monarch Kando Reflex, Remington Flex-Master, and Pickwick Reflex. Its basic design also exists in the form of models like the Metropolitan Clix-O-Flex, Metropolitan Metro-Flex, and the aluminum-bodied Utility Falcon-Flex.

Spartus Box 120

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Spartus Box 120

The Spartus Box 120 is just one in a series of no-frills box cameras introduced by Spartus in the early 1940s (not to be confused with the similarly named but clearly different Spartus 120 of the 1950s). Designed to accommodate 116, 120, 616, or 620 roll films, these models are virtually identical outside of the designated film format and faceplate design.

Marksman Six-20

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Marksman Six-20

The Marksman Six-20 is a no-frills box camera introduced in 1948 and sold by the Bernard Marks & Co. Ltd. of Toronto, Canada. Although both Eastman Kodak and Leica had a long history of manufacturing cameras at their factories in Ontario, many consider the Marksman Six-20 to be one of the only bona fide Canadian cameras in existence, but is it really?

Zenith Comet

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Zenith Comet

The Zenith Comet is a vertically-oriented viewfinder camera debuted by the Zenith Camera Corporation of Chicago in 1947. As part of the Chicago Cluster, a group of Chicago-based brands active in the 1940s including Spartus, Falcon, and Rolls which are generally believed to be multiple fronts for a single company, Zenith produced only a handful of basic models including the Comet’s close sibling: the Zenith Comet Flash. As its name might suggest, the only real difference between the Comet and the Comet Flash is the ability to use an accessory flash unit. Other than that, both models are functionally identical.

Ansco Century of Progress

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Ansco Century of Progress 1933 Chicago World's Fair camera

The Ansco Century of Progress is a commemorative version of the Ansco No. 2 Box camera made by Agfa-Ansco to be sold at the 1933 “Century of Progress” World’s Fair which took place in Chicago, USA. There were several branded cameras available at the 1933 World’s Fair including one based on the Kodak No. 2 Brownie as well as the cheap and cheerful “Yen Camera” from Japan.

Spartus Press Flash

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Spartus Press Flash

The Spartus Press Flash (also sold as the Falcon Press Flash, the Galter Press Flash, and the Regal Flash Master) is an unusually designed box camera introduced by the Spartus Camera Corporation in 1939. It is widely believed to be the very first camera of any kind to feature a built-in flash unit.

Bell & Howell Electric Eye 127

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The Bell & Howell Electric Eye 127 (also known as the Infallible Electric Eye 127) is a premium automatic exposure box camera introduced in 1958 by the Bell & Howell Company of Chicago. While better known for its motion picture cameras and projectors, Bell & Howell also manufactured several still camera models from the late ’40s to the early ’60s and sold rebadged Canon cameras in the 1970s.

Acro Model R

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The Acro Model R is a relatively obscure World War II era rangefinder camera introduced in 1940 by the Acro Scientific Products Company of Chicago. Like Spartus, Acro was part of the “Chicago Cluster,” a group of Chicago-based camera brands that produced a series of nearly identical Bakelite cameras. However, unlike the vast majority of those cameras that were designed to be simple and cheaply made, the R is an upscale model for advanced amateurs.

Spartus 35

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The Spartus 35 is the direct successor to the original Spartus 35F. After Herold bought out Spartus in 1951, it decided to update the 35 (which was modeled after the Argus A), creating the design you see above which was probably based loosely on the Kodak Pony.

Imperial Instant Load 900

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The Imperial Instant Load 900 is a simple viewfinder camera manufactured by the Imperial Camera Corporation of Chicago. When it debuted in 1963, the 900 was one of the first cameras designed to be used with Kodak’s 126 film cartridge which had been introduced just earlier that year.

Spartus Six Twenty

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The Spartus Six Twenty is a box camera dressed up as a TLR introduced in 1940 by the Spartus Camera Corporation of Chicago. The Six Twenty—so named because it takes 620 format film—is what’s called a “psuedo TLR” which means that it looks like legitimate TLR at a glance but is technically a box camera because the lenses do not focus in tandem (unlike its cousin, the Spartus Spartaflex which has a coupled focusing system). In fact, the lenses on the Six Twenty can’t really be focused at all.

Spartus Spartaflex

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The Spartus Spartaflex is a medium format twin lens reflex manufactured by the Spartus Camera Corporation of Chicago. Although I found a print ad from the 1940s pricing this camera outfit at an incredulous $47.91 (well over $800 in today’s money), the Spartaflex is by no means a serious answer to the high-quality German TLRs (such as the Rolleicord IId) that had been dominating the market since the late ’20s.

Spartus 120

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The Spartus 120 is a simple box camera made of an early type of plastic called Bakelite. At the time of the 120’s introduction, a great multitude of relatively inexpensive cameras (including the Spartus 35F) were being manufactured in Chicago by the same factories but sold under a puzzlingly broad range of different but related brands with Spartus being the cornerstone of it all. It should come as no surprise then that this very same camera was also sold as the Sunbeam 120 and that a brown-colored but otherwise identical variant was sold under the name “Spartus 120 Flash Camera.”

Revere Stereo 33

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The Revere Stereo 33 is a 3-D stereo rangefinder camera produced in the 1950s by the Revere Camera Co. of Chicago, Ilinois. Sadly, Revere only made three still cameras and two of them are stereo rangefinders (the other one was released under the Wollensak brand and is basically the same camera with different lenses and shutters), the third one being a plastic automatic camera that takes 127 film. There were a number of 126 film cameras sold under the Revere name in the ’60s but they were produced by Minolta under license.

Spartus 35F

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The Spartus 35F and its twin, the Spartus 35 are simple 35mm cameras made of Bakelite, an early plastic. Modeled after the highly successful and massively influential Argus A, the 35F features a classic shape very common to 35mm cameras of its era. The 35F was manufactured in Chicago by the aptly named Spartus Corp. before it became the Herold Manufacturing Co. which is why the lens of this particular specimen bears the Herold name. Spartus Corp. and its incarnations produced a great multitude of Bakelite cameras (many of which are practically identical to each other) under a wide variety of different brand names such as Utility, Falcon, Monarch and, of course, Spartus.

Herco Imperial 620 Snap Shot

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The Herco Imperial 620 Snap Shot is a simple plastic box camera that was manufactured by the Herbert George Co. of Chicago (which would later become the Imperial Camera Corporation). This and other box cameras like it were initially sold under the brand name “Herco” and then, somewhat confusingly, under the “Imperial” brand. While doing my research, I found this camera being referred to as both the “Herco Imperial” and the “Imperial Herco.” This camera will be referred to in this article as the Herco Imperial because it just makes more sense given the hierarchy of text on the camera itself.