CLASSIC FILM CAMERAS
FILM STARS
How John Wade, with a lot of help from Mike Rignall, revived a lost camera
Collectors are often drawn to particular makes, models or types of camera. For some time, I have had a strong interest in, and have carried out a lot of research into, the Wray Optical Company that, for many years, was based at Bromley in Kent. They were principally lens makers, respected the world over for their quality. But they also made a few cameras which, in all honesty, were not so well received.
A bit of background
The Wrayflex was one camera that did gain a modicum of success. Wray made three models in 1951, 1953 and 1959. But, partially due to the quirky designs of the first two, they never really made it up there with the Big Boys. By the time they got the design more on the right track with the third model, the Japanese had arrived to show everyone they could do the job better and cheaper. In the end, across the three Wrayflex models, only a little over 3,000 cameras were ever manufactured. What shouldn’t be overlooked, however, is that the Wrayflex was Britain’s only really serious attempt at producing a 35mm single lens reflex. That’s why Wrayflexes now appeal to collectors like me, and it’s why the cameras, despite a certain unpopularity when they were manufactured and first sold, now command high prices. But even more intriguing are the cameras Wray tried, and failed, to produce in any significant number before the Wrayflex.
Following World War Two, around 1946, Wray built six prototypes of what would have been Britain’s first 35mm camera. They called it the Owl and sent their reps out with samples to gauge feedback from dealers.
The reaction wasn’t good and the camera never went into production. Today, for collectors, those six prototypes have become very desirable, rather rare and, when the last one was sold at auction a few years back, extremely expensive. (Don’t bother trying to find one. I have two and I know the whereabouts of the other four!)
So by now you will have realised that the fewer the number of camera types made by Wray, and the less successful they were, the more collectors are likely to clamour for them. Which brings me to what this story is really about: namely my pursuit of the very first camera that Wray made – or didn’t make – or might have made – or might not.
Where it began
In 1930 the British Journal Photographic Almanac – an annual publication known to collectors as the BJ – carried a half-page advertisement in which Wray announc
