MTFCA Forum

Brownie #2 came out in 1901 till 1935, right along with the Model T. Everyone who bought a T also bought a Brownie. At $2-3.00 it brought photography to the masses, mimicking what the Model T did. Here are a bunch of Brownie pictures

Check out the car with the rare 1921? visor headlight lens.

If John's camera is a 120 it's still usable. Other film sizes (116, 122, 124, etc.) are long gone. It has only a vertical viewfinder. Many box cameras, like the #2 Brownie, have another viewfinder for horizontal shots. #2 even has some limited aperture adjustment and a time exposure setting.

A few shots could use a slight adjustment.

Wonderful photos Tom, thanks for sharing. For those T enthusiasts adverse to using accessories, please notice the vast variety of them applied to the well loved Lizzie.

Great pics again Tom! I loved the one where I bet it's the brides dad choking the new groom. Maybe she was already pregnant...

Anyway, my late dad had a Brownie...man he took zillions of great pics with that crazy little thing.
He also did his own developing, which led me into the same hobby and ultimately a side-line profession which did pay pretty good.

Thanks for all your work posting. It takes time.

If that’s a Brownie #2, what is this called? It belonged to Lillian, my grandmother. I love the string handle, so well loved. She’s on the left here, pushing her daddy’s flivver with her sisters.

If that’s a Brownie #2, what is this called?

It's an earlier model, like John's. Model A, B, C? I don't know. Maybe it has some ID inside like my D, or maybe it's early enough to not have a model designation beyond Brownie.

Of course the string is Lillian's replacement for the leather strap that wore out. Probably broke near a hole. The straps were not high quality material. Like the Model T, the Brownie was made to be cheap. Unlike Ford, Eastman didn't necessarily use the highest quality materials. Brownies were the Instamatics of their day, but they were much better cameras than their sixties and seventies successors.

Thanks Steve, wasn’t there an early version where you had to send the whole cardboard box in, to get developed ? Where is Mark Osterman when we need him?

Tim,
That was the original Kodak camera of 1888, it came preloaded with a 100 exposure film roll. You sent the whole camera back to Eastman for processing. http://camera-wiki.org/wiki/Kodak_Camera The cool thing about those was that the photographs are round. The Brownie came out in 1900, and the no. 2 Brownies were made from 1901 until I think about 1932. Box cameras in bewildering variations were made until at least the late 1950s.

Thanks Chris, great info.

Anytime dude!

I went through a box and folding camera collecting phase in college, and I spent way too much time on the Brownie camera website. Here's the breakdown on the No. 2 Brownie. https://www.brownie-camera.com/53.shtml They were cardboard covered with leatherette from 1902-1924, and the last version (No. 2 model F) was aluminum, they age really well.

The Hawk-Eye and Premo series came from two other brands that Kodak bought out, and "Cartridge" meant rollfilm. (When 120 rollfilm came out, rolls were called cartridges because most people thought they looked like shotgun shells.) Just guessing, I'm guessing that Lillian's camera is a No. 2 Cartridge Hawk-Eye. I think I've got one somewhere.

Steve: although Brownies were inexpensive, they were actually pretty good. I have a couple of the competitor cameras, and they were noticeably worse materials: we're talking cheap oilcloth instead of embossed leatherette or blued steel instead of nickel plate.

When I was in high school I glued a couple of 116 Brownies together to shoot stereo pictures. My little brother, who recently turned 75, is 12 in this shot.

Didn't collect these , just saved Grandparents, Parents and mine. Also have a folding No. 2 out of reach of the Grand-kids

Nice collection.

Frank's second camera from the right is the kind Mom used. I think the results are not too bad for a fixed focus camera.

1946

Lillian was born in 1905 so perhaps the cartridge Hawkeye was a hand me down, but still cherished. I’ve not been able to open it, and I’d be horrified if I forced it open to find a roll of undeveloped film inside.
It’s funny how some family’s never took pictures, but our ancestors always did a lot. Thanks God! We sure weren’t wealthy so it can’t be just that.

Tim Morsher:

In case you are not aware, the winding stem needs to be pulled out approximately 3/16" in order to slide open the camera.

The first box camera I bought at an estate sale when I was a kid had an undeveloped roll of film in it. I took it in and had it developed.

Eureka! Thanks Eric

I’m now thinking this could have been grandmas originally. What a present for a young girl back then.

Here is a Brownie No. 1 with an embossed fish scale case that I picked up at an estate sale a few years ago. It is much smaller than a Brownie No. 2.

When you bought this camera, the viewfinder was extra. Otherwise, you used the two lines on the top of the case to line up your snapshots.

There may be no more than a handful of members who realize Steve's stage name back in the day was Jay North who, as we should all remember, played the fictional Dennis the Menace.
As a child star:

Don't be afraid to clean and conserve the exterior of your box camera.

Clean with a soft rag and mild soap and water

Use Fiebing's black shoe dye on the leather strap. Follow up with Kiwi black show polish and buff with a horsehair shoe brush.

Use Kiwi shoe polish on the camera body and buff with a horsehair shoe brush. Not all box cameras are black so use the appropriate color: black, brown, cordovan, oxblood or neutral, etc.

Here is a Stereo Kodak No. 2 with its original leather case I picked up ten years ago. It is approximately the same size as three Brownie No. 2s placed side by side.

Note that the second to the last picture is before cleaning and conserving compared to the last picture which is after.

Erik, you must be the camera whisperer. LOL Those are two droolworthy box cameras right there.