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a beautiful tropical model of a TECO box camera

Toronto. Glad you asked! It is one of the unusual (and rare) cameras offered today at our Fall Fair by Les Jones. It was once sold by  store and catalogue here in Canada by Eaton’s, now long gone ( folded the end of 1999) but still familiar for the Eaton Centre at Yonge and Dundas on what once was the firm’s flag ship store.

Seriously, ‘tropical’ camera models were made of materials intended to resist damage in hot, humid environments like the tropics.

It was (and still is) popular for large companies to ‘private brand’ products made by others. Sometimes the private brand versions had different options and sometimes not. Typical of companies who sold private brand goods was the late T. Eaton Company, famous for its large catalogue of household goods and its flag ship Toronto Store.

Eaton’s had stores in many Canadian cities and even a catalogue ordering service in smaller communities. The department store and catalogue colossus was our version of the mighty American Sears outfit in Chicago – known up here as Simpson-Sears in the early mid last century when it bought out  the Robert Simpson company, a main competitor  of Eaton’s. It later slunk back home to Chicago and Eaton’s failed under their 3rd generation control.

All that is history as they say. The beautiful little TECO box camera is just one of the offerings at our fair today. Come out and enjoy the sunny day; meet old friends; add to your collection/user gear and expand your knowledge of photo history!

PS: The good food mentioned in earlier posts will unfortunately not be offered this year. Apologies to all.

elderly lady in coffin. Victoria BC c1988

Toronto … and long leggedly beasties and things that go ‘bump’ in the night … is from a traditional Scottish folk prayer. As Halloween is fast approaching it seems fitting to discuss old post-mortem images (really old, not like the c1988 example at left).

As photography blossomed and flourished, some photographers chose to take a likeness of the dearly departed for the grieving family. These old photos pop up from time to time and are suitable for collectors.

There was even an article in our journal (13-5) on Post-Mortem photography as well as the aptly named “Dead Still” TV series on City_TV a while back (which I watched after getting a ‘heads up’ by president Clint).

Collectors may even find such images – or other equally interesting items – at one of our events such as the fall fair coning up Sunday, October 18th here in the big smoke.