Kodak Hawkeye Ace (late 1930s)

The Hawkeye Ace is an obscure little Kodak box camera from the late 1930s. It survives mainly through classified listings and a handful of collector pages. What documentation exists shows a very simple, very affordable camera. It was made by Kodak Ltd. in the United Kingdom, and appears to have been produced as a premium camera - one given away as an incentive or reward rather than sold through regular retail channels.

The construction is about as basic as it gets. The outer casing is leatherette-covered cardboard with a metal front plate. The shutter mechanism and fixed meniscus lens are mounted on wood attached to that metal front. It uses 127 roll film and makes 4 × 6.5 cm exposures. You slide a small silver button one way or the other to fire the instantaneous flip-flop shutter. There's no focusing, since it's fixed focus, and framing is done through a wire frame viewfinder that extends from the body. One source notes the camera is slightly smaller than the contemporary Box Brownie.

The naming is a bit tangled. The Hawkeye Ace appears to be one of several slight variations on the Kodak Hawkeye, a model also commonly sold as the "Baby Hawkeye" and "Hawkeye Ace De Luxe." The De Luxe variant is documented as a 1938 camera by the Museum of Technology. The standard Ace is essentially the same camera, though the exact relationship between the variants isn't cleanly documented.

Not much is known about this model. No original retail price, no production numbers, no shutter speeds or aperture values, and no period reviews have surfaced. The record consists of a few collector descriptions and current listings - a Gumtree ad from Fife, Scotland asking £10 for a "Kodak Hawkeye Ace Deluxe," and a for-sale.co.uk listing at £12.99. The camera is slightly smaller than the Box Brownie, uses 127 film, and takes 4 × 6.5 cm pictures through a fixed meniscus lens. It was a cheap, simple box camera made for promotional purposes in the late 1930s.

Film: 127 roll film, 4 × 6.5 cm exposures
Lens: Fixed meniscus (documented with a question mark by redbellows.co.uk)
Shutter: Instantaneous flip-flop, operated by sliding a small silver button
Viewfinder: Extending wire frame
Construction: Leatherette-covered cardboard body, metal front, wood-mounted lens
Made in: United Kingdom, by Kodak Ltd.
Period: Late 1930s (De Luxe variant documented as 1938)
Market: Made for supply as a premium camera