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Forum: Site Suggestions and Help
07-24-2022, 07:19 PM
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How does one leave the Forum...that is to "unregister"?
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Forum: Vintage Cameras and Equipment
06-23-2022, 04:48 PM
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gaweidert:
Thanks for the lead to Brayer’s Biography of Geo. Eastman. I’m researching these camera histories, and need all the references I can get, and would appreciate knowing what you use. My principal references are “Images and Enterprise” by Reese Jenkins 1975, and “Kodak Cameras, the First Hundred Years”, by Brain Coe, 1988.
About your prior post: I’m curious that the manufacture date for the No. 2 Bulls-Eye Kodak is cited as 1892 and curious about the “race” for a patent. Could you provide a source please?
The references I’ve seen, including Brayer, cite 1895 as the year Kodak introduced the Bullet, their first copy of Boston’s Bulls-Eye. The references also cite 1896 (not 1892) for introduction of the Kodak No. 2 Bulls-Eye. This was after Kodak bought the Boston company in 1895 and obtained the Bulls-Eye name copyright. It appears that the only Bulls-Eye being manufactured between 1892 and mid-1895 was Boston’s.
Brayer describes the sequence regarding the Bulls-Eye starting with Boston’s patent application in 1892, and it’s granting in 1896. Other references note that for years Eastman had been erecting substantial patent barriers to protect his business even before the issue with the Boston patent. To this end, Brayer notes that Eastman had a habit of perusing the daily published list of new patents. If there was a patent race, Eastman was not running very fast: The Boston patent was submitted in 1892, but Kodak (under Frank Brownell’s name) applied several years later.
Thanks for posting!
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Forum: Vintage Cameras and Equipment
06-20-2022, 02:27 PM
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Great photos. The Very First of Kodak's Bullet cameras had a reverse "D" shaped red window. The camera, except for the shutter, was an EXACT copy of the Boston Camera Manufacturing Co. Bulls-Eye of 1892 and was a direct infringement on the Boston patents. Eastman knew a great design when he saw one and was not bound by anything to copy it! He got sued by Boston and started paying royalties. Then he bought Boston!!!
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Forum: Vintage Cameras and Equipment
06-20-2022, 02:19 PM
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This is a rare (really…), historically significant box camera. If you have a post 1900 box camera, it owes it design to this camera!
From the Boston Camera Manufacturing Co. this was the first camera to use flange-spooled and numbered paper-backed roll film and a red window (it was reverse “D” shaped) to view the exposure number. This design dominated amateur box cameras for 70 years. The patented design was so threatening to Kodak that they immediately sued to stop production, but the suit was dismissed. Rapidly Kodak duplicated the design in their nearly exact copy, the Bullet camera, ignoring the patents. Boston sued for patent infringement and Kodak started paying royalties. I imagine that George Eastman was irked to no end that someone else had patented a really great, revolutionary design and HE had to pay royalties. Soon Kodak bought Boston to avoid the royalties.
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Forum: Vintage Cameras and Equipment
06-20-2022, 01:37 PM
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New to the Forum. Just learning how to buy/sell..
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Forum: Vintage Cameras and Equipment
06-20-2022, 01:11 PM
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Oops. Typo. Bulls Eye! Not Bolls….
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