premo-nition

Glencoe B camera

Toronto. Around 1979, the late Jack Addison sold me a 4×5 woodie missing its name plate. He thought it might be a POCO camera. Perhaps it was a PREMO? In May or June of 1984, founder and first president of the PHSC (known as PHSoC at the time) published an article on Canadian Camera Manufactures (Photographic Canadiana 10-1).

Recently Brian Hudson, PHSC member and President of the Edmonton club began searching for information on his Glencoe B camera labelled as Made in Montreal by the Canadian Camera Company.

The question is whether the Canadian Camera Company manufactured the camera or imported it from Rochester and re-branded it as a Glencoe B? The photos show a camera remarkably similar to my mysterious 4×5 down to the side plate holder storage door. The late Bill Belier, our president in 1984, and at one time president of a Canadian Photography Import company, mentioned to me that Canadian tariffs made it economically practical to import partly assembled products and finish assembly here. These items were often labelled as “Made in Canada”although the design and parts manufacture were elsewhere.

Brian Hudson wrote in part, “… hoping that the Toronto members of the PHSC can help me with a bit of a mystery. Can any of the members provide more information on the Canadian Camera Company?

“I have an old folding plate camera in my collection that is labelled as a product of the Canadian Camera Company. The camera is a Glencoe B, a leather covered mahogany box (in inches: 4 3/4 deep x 5 3/4 tall x 6 3/4 wide) with a red bellows and using 4 x 5 in. plates. When closed, the compact box body completely encloses the working parts of the camera. The front of the box swings down to form a baseboard with a central rail, along which the lens panel can be drawn out. The baseboard has a focusing scale on the bed. The box is quite deep and has a side door that opens to permit three film holders to be stored. Inside this door is also a control lever that provides for some swing motion with the film plane.

“I have been able to find very little online information on the Canadian Camera Company, but Jim McKeown has a short reference in his Price Guide to Antique and Classic Cameras. McKeown notes two cameras from the Canadian Camera and Optical Company, both folding plate models, and both called Glencoe. An internet search found that the Canada Science and Technology Museum also has a Glencoe camera, produced by the Canadian Camera Company Limited. My camera is called a Glencoe B, but the attached label on the camera indicates the company was in Montreal, whereas the other sources identify the company as being located in Toronto. So are these the same company? Because the cameras referenced and the one in my possession are all called Glencoe, I think it reasonable to think that these are all from the same company, but why the naming of two cities when identifying the company?

“Accepting that we have a camera from a Canadian company, was the camera made in Canada? I have some doubts. The Glencoe B seems to me to be identical to the Premo A, cameras made by the Rochester Optical Company (ROC) in the late 1890s. While similar 4 x 5 plate cameras were made by a number of companies, the storage compartment for film holders is unusual. The camera body, the Bausch and Lomb lens and shutter, and other features, such as the swing back, are all the same as the Premo A, advertised in the 1900 Rochester Optical Company catalogue. Could the Canadian company have ordered a sufficient number of cameras from the U.S. company that ROC was willing to label them as Glencoe models rather Premo? Further research needs to be done on the history of the company, but with limited material online, that may require research in Toronto and Montreal archives. Still, this company may be the first to have produced ‘Canadian cameras’.

“Any further information that PHSC members can provide on this early Canadian photographic company would be appreciated.”

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