Well, in the interest of brevity I couldn't mention them all, but if I were to intentionally suppress my memory of Universal Camera Co. products, that would be because it was the most depressing photographica catalogue of them all. During the mid to late 1950s and early '60s, Mercurys and Buccaneers were most often seen stinking up the shelves of pawn shops from coast to coast, taken in by unwary brokers who knew nothing about cameras. You could get all you wanted for $6.50 each and be treated to a grateful handshake. There was a brief period during the early 1970s when they were regarded as "collectible," thanks entirely to my friend Jack Price of Columbus, Ohio, who assembled a display of them for photo shows. Magazine articles appeared, and soon after, pawn and thrift shops were cleansed of them.
Actually, the Mercury wasn't all bad and had some ingenious features, if you didn't mind lugging a half frame camera in a double frame body. They sold moderately well during the mid to late 1940s when quality photo equipment was hard to get and expensive. It was a quirky camera, looking like nothing else. Check it out.
Indeed, I was one of those beneficiaries of Dr. Kelman's technique, for which I am hugely grateful. Whatever the money he made from his contribution to my eyesight, it wasn't enough.
Allen Zak
On Jan 11, 2010, at 11:13 AM, aghalide@xxxxxxx wrote:
Other cameras you neglected to mention are the Mercury single frame (half frame) camera and the Buccaneera conventional 35mm camera. My brother owned a Buccaneer which he bought from a company situated on 23rd St in Manhattan. One of the owners of the company that made these 2 cameras was a cousin by marriage. His son, Dr. Charles Kelman, a second cousin of mine, invented the cryosurgery technique for removing cataracts using a small opening and replacing the lens at the same time. As you can guess....sight was saved for millions of people with the use of this technique.
Needless to say, he made lots of money.
Ed Meyers
-------------- Original message from Javier Perez <summarex@xxxxxxxxxxx>: --------------
Yup
That pretty much sez it all. I like to think that without Argus's ability to dump truly affordable 35mm cameras on the market we might not have had 35mm as the dominant format. Perhaps 126 would have won out or a totally new film format might have been created.
Javier
From: azak@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [rollei_list] Re: [rolleiusers] Argomania
Date: Sun, 10 Jan 2010 15:56:53 -0500
To: rolleiusers@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Almost every photographer, amateur or professional who came up during the early to mid-1950s has at least some acquaintance with the Argus C series, mainly C3, the most successful American-made 35 mm camera ever. It was an ungainly monster, a clunker to carry, clumsy and slow in use (I could work a Speed Graphic faster), fitted with a mediocre lens and unreliable rangefinder. Although the optics were interchangeable with wide and tele options, few owners bothered with them. It was a real project to change lenses, especially difficult to accomplish without a surface to work on.
Despite all, it was a triumph of merchandising; by the end of the '50s, more C3s had been sold in the US than all other makes combined, foreign or domestic. There were US competitors, notably the Bolsey B and C models and the Kodak 35, both superior products, in my opinion. Both, however, were available mostly in photo specialty shops, with ER case, flash, film, batteries and bulbs sold separately as was the custom in photographic sales then. Argus, however, packaged C3s as complete kits, with all the above except film and available at a much wider variety of shops. Some of the larger general merchandise stores had them on racks. Also, ugly as the contraption was, many people were dazzled by the gears on its front, assuming this meant some kind of high tech (no speculation here, I encountered several people who expressed themselves so.)
So ubiquitous was the C3 that, basically, I couldn't avoid owning a couple of the wretched things at different times and regretted each. Still, a gazillion images were made with Argus Cs, many of them of historical note. Even though instructed not to, the tail gunner on a B29 over Japan ( I don't remember which city) took the only still photo of an atomic bomb mission mushroom cloud with his personal Argus Later, according to a magazine article I once read but memory no longer allows me to cite, that the first electron microscope image of a molecule was made with a lash-up involving a C3 body, which had been found on a beach by one of the scientists involved and hanged up on a garage wall until pressed into service for the project.
There were other Argus offerings. Some sold moderately well, but none as phenomenally successful as the C3. Despite that, the company was a troubled one, plagued with bad business decisions and worse luck. In the end, unable to upgrade and faced with superior Japanese competitors, the brick sunk the company.
Allen Zak
On Jan 8, 2010, at 12:54 AM, Javier Perez wrote:
Hi Everyone
FYI, you might want to have a look at this book about Argus cameras. Since most of you are serious camera collectors or photo historians, I don't have to explain the significance of the old Argus to photography! I'm sure the veterans among you have some interesting Argus stories
to tell.
Javier
http://www.ultragone.net
