1930 50th Anniversary Box Camera by Kodak
Toronto. Boxing day on December 26th used to be THE day for sales. Then boxing day week, then black Friday, now COVID-19 and total lockdown over the holidays.
Still, it is fitting to celebrate boxing day with a box camera. Box cameras were the simplest of designs – fixed focus meniscus lens (about f/16), simple two blade shutter (about 1/25), simple viewer, and a box to keep out the light and hold the lens and shutter the correct distance from the roll film.
Kodak’s Brownie line saved money by using cardboard and a paper covering instead of wood and a leather covering. In 1930, to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Eastman-Kodak, Eastman badged a bunch of Brownie Hawk-Eye No 2 cameras with a round gold coloured paper circle and offered a camera free to anyone child who turned 12 that year on a first come basis (until all 550,000 or so cameras were handed out by the retailers). A Brownie linked site says “in North America” but the ad shown on the site says “America”. I vaguely remember a member saying the largess of Mr Eastman was limited to 12 year old American children in 1930.
