Camera Truck photo courtesy of Mark Osterman
Toronto, In 1921, the Mission Art Company, of South Spring Street in Los Angeles sent this truck cum camera and its phtographers to promote its business. Mark Osterman, who along with his wife, spoke to us back in June of 1998, posted the image you see at left on Facebook.
According to Gettyimages, they hold the copyright and will sell you an actual print or licence you to use the print which is marked as Underwood Archives/Getty Images (the photo shows the studio address so many copies may exist to advertise this business).
Mark suggests that it is a “Model T Ford [with an] ultra large format dry plate camera”. Getty just calls it a “Truck Camera” and a “camera truck”. Looking closely at the image, it looks like a truck mounted mock up of a camera touting the company photographers. Perhaps Mark is speaking tongue-in-cheek since he is an acknowledged expert in that era of photographic history and earlier.
My dad worked on a Ford model TT truck many years ago after he retired. The example above could well have been a body built of wood on a model T or model TT chassis since the photograph is dated as 1921 by Getty. Ford trucks came with a body as of 1924 and were sold as chassis only from 1917 to 1923. My Model T manual was published in 1917 when, according to Wikipedia, only 3 truck chassis were made.
A big thanks to my friend and fellow PHSC member, George Dunbar, for finding this interesting photo and sharing it with us all.
