Blair
Camera Co.
Hawk-Eye, Jr. Camera, 1897
|
| The Hawk-Eye line
of cameras has a history similar in length to the famous
'Brownie' line. The first Hawk-Eye cameras were
manufactured in 1888 by the Boston Camera Co. as exposed
wooden or leather-covered detective cameras. As time went
on, Boston Camera Co. was acquired by The Blair Camera
Company which was finally acquired by Eastman Kodak
around 1900. Kodak continued to use the Hawk-Eye name
through the 1960s to identify some of its simple box and
folding models. The Hawk-Eye Jr. above competed directly with the Eastman Bullet and Bulls-Eye cameras, as well as with the Buck-Eye camera made by the American Camera Mfg. Co. and marketed by E.&H.T. Anthony. The 'Jr.' suffix is due to the fact that this model, along with the aforementioned Eastman and American Camera models, took images 3.5" square, while the Hawk-Eye camera took 4" x 5" images. |
