a Doryu pistol camera ad for the December 1991 Christie’s auction
Toronto. The late 1930s saw the rise in so called subminiature cameras with the Minox arguably the best known. To stand out, the Doryu company in Japan marketed this novel submini that used 16mm film.
The one shown at left was auctioned the end of 1991 in England by Christie’s. It went for an astounding $20,000US – far beyond earlier private sales or even the auction house estimate.
Michael Pritchard (our guest speaker October, 1997) announced in print (our back cover illustration for issue 17-3), “One of the best collections of subminiature and detective cameras is being sold at Christie’s. Put together by a British collector it features a Lancaster watch camera, Doryu pistol camera, Brins patent camera, focal-plane Expo police camera, Parker Pen camera, Parva camera, Minox cameras, a Lucky Strike camera (one of two known) and a range of matchbox cameras.
“Cameras disguised as watches, guns, radios, lighters, vanity cases, rings and a very extensive range of Japanese subminiature and Hit-type cameras are also included.
“A catalogue illustrating most of the 250 lots will be available from the end of October [1991]. For further information or for an illustrated catalogue please contact Michael Pritchard …”.
While we never know just what will show up at our fairs, we do know you will find the very thing to augment your collection (or user gear). Drop in on Sunday, October 20th. Lots of free parking around, there will be the usual great food, admission is cheap, and you may well meet old fiends! See the post and poster here for details.
