{"id":33732,"date":"2026-03-18T01:03:27","date_gmt":"2026-03-18T05:03:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/?p=33732"},"modified":"2026-03-18T01:17:28","modified_gmt":"2026-03-18T05:17:28","slug":"flying-off-the-shelf","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/flying-off-the-shelf\/","title":{"rendered":"flying off the shelf …"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Land’s first Polaroid – the model 95. Photo under the Creative Commons<\/a> CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication <\/a>Copyright (Wikipedia)<\/p><\/div>\n

Toronto<\/strong>. … Like a bat out of hell. In late 1948, Edwin Land<\/a> dropped a bombshell on the photographic world. \u00a0He put to market a revolutionary camera and film system that took a monochrome photo and developed the positive print within the camera in 60 seconds.<\/p>\n

Such speedy processing was unheard of before digital technology. Land delivered his first batch of cameras and film<\/a> to a local Boston department store thinking he would have lots of time to manufacture the next batch. However; the first batch literally flew off the shelf, selling out in the first day!<\/p>\n

My friend Bill Belier worked for the Canadian distributor. He had the same experience – deliveries from Land couldn’t keep pace with sales. Ironically today (2026) the famous Polaroid cameras have little value to collectors, usually selling for under $100.<\/p>\n

Visit our events and you may find the odd Polaroid (everyone needs an SX-70 in their collection) or other interesting item for your collection of photographica. Our Spring Fair is set for May 24th at Trident Hall. Closer to the event a poster will be pinned to the top of page one on this site.<\/p>\n

NB: This post was brought to mind by Meatloaf’s title song on his first album, “Bat Out of Hell<\/a>“.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Toronto. … Like a bat out of hell. In late 1948, Edwin Land dropped a bombshell on the photographic world. \u00a0He put to market a revolutionary camera and film system that took a monochrome photo and developed the positive print … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1944],"tags":[398,400,301],"class_list":["post-33732","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-history","tag-camera","tag-fair","tag-polaroid"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33732","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33732"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33732\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33752,"href":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33732\/revisions\/33752"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33732"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33732"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33732"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}