Fortune Magazine October 1936
Toronto. It began in the late 1800s when Kodak perfected roll film. Edison in his experiments with movies split the 70mm wide Kodak film in two to make two 35mm rolls. Because of slippage, Edison added sprockets on his machines and sprocket holes in the film to engage with them.
Various makers used the 70mm wide or 35mm wide films in miniature camera designs. In the early 1900s, the son of Ernst Leitz took an experimental miniature camera designed by Barnack to NYC when he visited the Leitz facilities there.
By the early 1900s the shape and spacing of movie film sprocket holes was standardized. Sadly, miniature cameras were still unsuccessful until 1925 when the tiny Leica that evolved from Barack’s early design hit the road and became the first commercially successful miniature camera. To overcome resistance to tiny cameras, Leitz touted enlargements to make the tiny images on the negative into big prints that appeared sharp and crisp.
Other makers jumped onboard with new miniature camera designs. The great depression re-enforced the virtue of a small negative camera and enlargements to save money and the rest is history. People quietly moved from the large traditional cameras to the much smaller miniature cameras with their more economical use of film. In late 1936, the relatively new Fortune magazine published an article on the American minicam revolution.
Today many people have never used film. Almost every smartphone offers a built-in camera that make technically perfect images almost a given. The camera modules in smartphones make the old miniature cameras huge by comparison.
At our events you may well spot one of the old minicams – some predating the early Leicas with their hockey stick infinity locks and fixed 5cm lenses. The 2026 events are well underway with the famous outdoor Trunk Sale up next on July 12th, held this year on the Legion Hall #101 grounds down in southwestern Toronto in Long Branch (we host our auctions down there in Hall #101).
