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Spartus 120 Flash Camera

The Spartus 120 Flash Camera is a simple, Bakelite camera produced in 1953 by Herold Mfg. Co. of Chicago, Illinois. It has features consistent with other Bakelite box cameras of the era. The shutter is a simple rotary disc with a single speed. The lens is a primitive meniscus type lens. There are no adjustable apertures. The camera produces eight 6x9cm images on a roll of 120 film. The camera can accept a top-mounted flash which uses flash bulbs and requires batteries to function. A side-mounted viewfinder is used for composition.

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Spartus 120 Flash and Its History

Spend enough time with inexpensive, mass-produced cameras and you are bound to come across a Spartus at some point (or a Falcon, for that matter). The Spartus was a popular brand line by the Spartus Corporation of Chicago, Illinois. Spartus was founded by Jack Galter, a Russian Jewish immigrant who played a brief stint with Benny Goodman's orchestra as a jazz drummer. Galter started out by manufacturing clocks and razors but, acquiring the Utility Mfg. Co. in 1941, he folded it into the Spartus Corp. ⁠

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Spartus prolifically produced cameras through the 40s and 50s. One of Galter's patents even became the inspiration for Lomography's Sprocket Rocket 70 years later.⁠ The Spartus Corporation was eventually bought by its head of sales, Harold Rubin, who changed the company's name to Herold Products Co. Then again, in the 1960s, the company name once again returned to Spartus Corp. A line, of sorts, can be drawn from Utility to Spartus to Herold and back to Spartus, not to mention Galter's own spinoff company after the Herold sale called Galter Products Co....

It is amusing that the history of these incredibly simple cameras can be so astonishingly complex.

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Blue Moon Camera and Machine llc

sales@bluemooncamera.com
(503) 978-0333
(503) 978-0370
8417 North Lombard Street
Portland, OR 97203