Ad for the 1946 Vokar I camera
Toronto. Post WW2, umpteen American companies tried to hop on the American made camera bandwagon. One was the Vokar line made in Dexter, Michigan. The design was said to have originated pre war from the mind of Dick Bills. Mike Butkus has the instruction book here.
While it was advertised during 1946, the line never took off and disappeared a few years later into the dark and silent bowels of history. Even camera collectors seem uninterested in valuing the line more than the retail price quoted in the late 1940s.
This ad from page 141 of the August 1946 issue of Popular Photography is courtesy of my friend George Dunbar who has generously shared the illustration above. According to Camera Wiki, the ads began in January 1946.
Note, the post title is German for “What is this?” which I can picture the German camera industry saying as they laughed at the camera’s features and price using design ideas that originated over two decades earlier in Europe.
