Cameras made in the United States
This is a Super Kodak Six-20, a medium format folding camera made by Eastman Kodak in Rochester, NY in 1938. The Super Kodak Six-20 is historically significant for a variety of reasons, most importantly, it was the first mass produced camera with automatic exposure. The camera was created by famed…
This is a Kodak Brownie Super 27 camera, made by Eastman Kodak in Rochester, NY between the years 1961 and 1965. This curiously shaped camera was part of Kodak’s long running Brownie series, and includes a built-in flash using AG-1 flashes, a two speed shutter, and a two position focus…
This is an Anscoflex II, a twin lens box camera made by Ansco of Binghamton, New York between the years 1954 and 1958. The Anscoflex II is a more advanced version of the original Anscoflex which was introduced a few months earlier. The only difference is the addition of two…
This is a Graflex 22 Model 200, a Twin Lens Reflex camera produced by Graflex, Inc of Rochester, NY starting in 1952. There were a total of three different versions of the Graflex 22, the models 200, 400, and 400F all of which shot 6cm x 6cm images on 120…
This is the Foto-Flex, a twin lens box camera made by the Hadds Mfg. Co. for the Foto-Flex Corporation of Chicago, Illinois starting in 1947. The Foto-Flex was an inexpensive camera made of plastic and stamped metal and makes twelve 4cm x 4cm images on 127 format roll film. It…
This is an AGFA Memo, a compact folding camera made in Binghamton, New York by the AGFA ANSCO Corporation starting in 1939. This version of the Memo is a less common variant that shoots 18mm x 24mm single frame images on ANSCO’s Memo film, which is very similar to AGFA’s…
There’s a saying from an old Chevrolet commercial that describes things “as American as baseball, hot dogs, and apple pie”. Now, I like baseball, hot dogs, and apple pie, so maybe there’s something to that, but if you were to ask me, what is more American than those things, at…
This is a “military” Kardon 35mm rangefinder camera, produced by the Premier Instrument Corp in New York City between the years 1947 and 1954. The Kardon was originally developed as an “American Leica” after imports of cameras from Germany had ceased during World War II. Charged with building the camera…
This is a Kemper Kombi, an early miniature roll film box camera and graphoscope produced by the Alfred C. Kemper Company of Chicago, Illinois, USA starting in 1893. The Kombi used a proprietary paper backed roll film developed specifically for it by the Eastman Kodak company and shot up to…
This is a Kodak Brownie Hawkeye Flash, an all plastic box camera produced by the Eastman Kodak Company in Rochester, New York between the years 1950 and 1961. It was an update to a non-flash version that was released in 1949. All Brownie Hawkeyes take 6cm x 6cm images on…
This is an Argus C4, a 35mm rangefinder camera produced by Argus in Ann Arbor, Michigan. This particular example has what’s called the Geiss modification offered by Argus from 1954 to 1956, which for $10 they would send the camera to a Chicago company called Geiss where it’s lens would…
American cameras rarely get much love from collectors. For every Kodak Medalist or Bell & Howell Foton, there were a ka-jillion cheap Brownie and Instamatic cameras with plastic lenses, single speed shutters, and a list of features that can often be counted on one hand. With sites like mine, there…
