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CORONET MIDGET

One of the most popular and affordable collectable subminiatures is the Coronet Midget camera. The camera was made by the Coronet Camera Company of Birmingham, England who specialised in mass-producing cheap, popular amateur cameras. The Coronet Camera Co. was established around 1921 by Frederick John Pettifer and its first product was a simple card-board camera supplied complete with processing chemicals, printing frame and printing paper.
Around 1925-1926 a 127 rollfilm camera was produced and by1928 the company had begun producing better quality box and folding rollfilm cameras.
In1933 the company had audited net sales figures of 510,000 cameras and it advertised "We believe that this figure is greater than the combined total sales of all British owned and controlled camera companies". With the success of its earlier products, and a move to the production of a popular cine camera and projector, the company introduced the Midget camera in 1934.
The company‘s advertisement in the BJ Almanac for 1936 described the Midget camera as being "In every way a real camera and not just a novelty or toy". This optimistic statement belied the fact that the camera was made from Bakelite, had a single meniscus f10 lens focusing from 5 feet to infinity,1/30 second single speed shutter and used tiny 16mm film. It weighed 2 1/2 oz (71g). The results from the camera were never going to be outstanding. A company advertising brochure called the camera "The world‘s smallest camera" The camera‘s design was registered and the subject of a patent.
The Coronet Midget was still being made in 1939 when it was listed in Amateur Photographer but production probably ceased with the commencement of the second world war. The Coronet Cameo was a postwar attempt to recreate the success of the Midget.
Return to first page ofSpy Camera: A Century of Detective and Subminiature CamerasBy Michael Pritchard and Douglas St. Denny .
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