Brownie is the name of a long-running popular series of simple and inexpensive cameras made by Eastman Kodak. The Brownie popularized low-cost photography and introduced the concept of the snapshot. The first Brownie, introduced in February 1900, was a very basic cardboard box camera with a simple meniscus lens that took 2¼-inch square pictures on 117 rollfilm. With its simple controls and initial price of $1, it was intended to be a camera anyone could afford. The Brownie is one of the most iconic cameras in history. Tens of millions were made so they are easy to find and buy even today, and mostly do not have high value as collectables. Overview The camera was named after the brownies in popular Palmer Cox cartoons. Consumers responded, and over 150,000 Brownie cameras were …show more content…
The last official Brownie cameras made were "anniversary model", 110 film models in the early 1980s. Beau Brownie The Beau Brownie range was available from 1930 to 1933. They differed little from the popular Brownie cameras, the only technical difference being the introduction of a new doublet lens, allowing the same picture to be projected on a film plate over a shorter distance, making the Beau Brownies nearly 2" shorter than their conventional counterparts. Visually, they had a different enameled two-tone front plate in a geometric Art Deco design, the work of American designer Walter Dorwin Teague. They were available in five color combinations: black and burgundy, brown and tan, two-tone blue, two-tone green, and two-tone rose. The rose and green cameras were produced only in 1930 and 1931, and are therefore rarer than the others. They were encased in a faux-leatherette casing. There were two formats, the $4 No.2 and $5 2A, just like the Brownies, the No.2 measuring 2 ¼" by 3 ¼" and using 120 roll film, and the 2A measuring 2½" by 4¼", and taking 116 Kodak roll film. The 2A had a thicker, bakelite rim and was an inch taller than the No. 2. Photographs taken with Brownie