CLASSIC CAMERAS
FILM STARS
Throwaway cameras have been around a lot longer than you think. John Wade looks at the then and now
Back in 1987, Fujifilm announced a revolutionary new kind of camera, which was actually described as a ‘Film With Lens’. It was called the Fujicolor Quicksnap. In fact, as well as a lens it also had a shutter and a thumbwheel to advance its 35mm film. There was no method of rewinding at the end of the roll because, when the last picture had been taken, the whole camera was dropped off at the nearest processing shop, where it was broken open, the film extracted for developing and printing as normal and everything else was thrown away. It was suggested that the Quicksnap was the world’s first disposable camera. It wasn’t.
A bit of history
As far back as 1886 the Ready Fotografer Company in America introduced a camera that was little more than a cardboard box which unfolded using crude bellows. A pinhole aperture at the front projected its image onto a single glass plate at the back. After exposure the camera was taken to a darkroom, where it was cut open to retrieve the plate, and the body was discarded.
The first disposable film camera arrived in 1948 when American entrepreneur Frederick Biehorst patented and then produced a camera called the Picture Box. Sold with the slogan ‘The World’s Most Convenient Camera’, it was made of cardboard, looked like a brightly coloured box camera and had to be broken open to develop its pre-loaded film. About the same time, mechanical engineer Alfred D Weir produced the similarly designed, and slightly more successful, Photo-Pac. In 1950, the Encore Camera Company in California introduced rather more prestigious-looking disposable cameras. Made of cardboard and pre-loaded with 127 film, the range included the Encore and Encore De Luxe, covered in paper printed to resemble leather, and the Hollywood whose paper covering looked like lizard skin. Full instructions for use were printed on the side of the cameras, and a label on the bottom was pre-printed with the name and address of the Encore Camera Company with a place for the user to write his or her name and address. The edge of a coin was used to open a perforated slot into which the photographer inserted a quarter coin (25 cents) wrapped in a dollar bill. A six-cent stamp was then stuck on the camera and the whole thing dropped in the mail.
After more tries, chiefly by American companies with cameras whose names included the Imp, Mini-Mate and Pro, the disposable camera market died away for a while. It came to life again in 1973 when the Canadian Lure Camera Company launched a
