I was looking through a friend's photostream and saw where he had a Kodak Brownie Starflash manual - wow! What a fine-looking camera! Here it is.
Then I wanted to run to eBay, where I could have one in my hands right now (plus shipping time) for under $15, but THEN I discovered that they made a red model with a Coca-Cola decal, so now I have to wait for that to appear. Starflash! Just look at that thing.
What would I use it for? Would I resurrect the darkroom? Haul out the packets of chemicals and sweep the artfully stacked moisturizers under the counter? (Let's face it, no one is using them.) Would I order 127 film from Croatia? Would the thrill wear off in three weeks, me secretly wondering why I didn't just recreate the effects in Photoshop? (And can a person like me even shoot film any more, having to make each click of the shutter count? Remember those days, having to nail your snapshot in one, maybe two, goes?)
Or would I just use it as really cool decor? Some people mount African masks; I hang vintage cameras? Pass the bellows.
And was the Starflash(!) what I wanted? Great name, but what about the Starflex? The Starluxe? The Starmite? The (gasp of pleasure) StarMATIC?
And what about the Art Deco-styled Beau Brownie?
And how long before I became this guy? No, really. This is his daily mail. *flutter*
So I killed some time on the Kodak site, looking at their Brownie centennial tribute from a few years ago, and I learned something interesting: in 1930, when Kodak turned 50, they gave away half-a-million Brownie cameras to 12-year-olds across the country. All you had to do was be born in 1918 and you were eligible. NEAT!
How did that work? Did you just have to trust people not to lie about their age (or their child's age)? You know some 13-year-olds totally scammed this. Likewise, the Kodak site mentions one pharmacist who told a little boy that they'd run out of cameras, when really the druggist was keeping the cameras to sell at a profit later. Jerk.
(Here's the Kodak site.)
So, I'm looking through the family tree database, seeing who was born in 1918. Alas, none of my ancestors, and the siblings/cousins all seem to be off a year or else died young. Was 1918 a low birth year? (Influenza, World War I, etc.?) I like to think that Kodak simply recognized that 12 is just a good age for appreciating a camera and being able to take responsibility for it, but maybe there was more to that decision. (Like, fewer people would be disappointed if they didn't get a camera? Nah, they couldn't have known...)
If you know someone who was born in 1918, ask them now - did they get a free Brownie? What was that like?
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