Kodak Six-20 (c. 1938–1952)
The "Kodak Six-20" isn't one camera. It's a name spread across a cluster of distinct Kodak models, and the record is tangled. The best-documented variant is the Brownie Target Six-20 (originally sold as the Target Brownie Six-20, introduced in 1941 and renamed in 1946), a metal-and-leatherette box camera taking 620 roll film. Kodak's published specs put the picture size at 2¼ × 3¼ inches, with a meniscus lens, a rotary shutter, two brilliant viewfinders, and a sliding tab offering roughly f/11 or f/16 plus a "B" setting for time exposures. The vertical-line art-deco faceplate is what most people picture when they hear the name. The original retail price was $3.50.
Production dates for the Brownie Target Six-20 are the messiest part of the record. Kodak's own literature gives July 1946 to May 1952, and that 1946-1952 range is the most commonly repeated figure. Other sources variously date it to 1938, the early 1940s, or "~1932-52" under Canadian Kodak. The 1946 introduction (from the 1941 Target Brownie) is the best-supported reading, with the Six-20 line ceasing production in 1952 alongside the Six-16.
Beyond the Brownie Target, the Six-20 name covers several separate cameras that shouldn't be mixed up. The Six-20 Folding Brownie was a UK-made folding camera (1937-1940) for 6×9 cm exposures on 620 film. It came with either a fixed-focus meniscus in a Kodette II shutter or a 100mm f/6.3 Anaston/Dakon. The Six-20 'Brownie' C was a fixed point-and-shoot with a single ~f/11 aperture and roughly 1/50th shutter. The Six-20 'Brownie' Model D, made by Kodak Ltd in Harrow, used 620 film with an f/11 meniscus and a single-leaf 1/50s-or-bulb shutter. The Super Kodak Six-20 (1938-1944) was something else entirely. It was the first camera with a coupled electric-eye for auto exposure, and it ran eight shutter speeds from 1/25 to 1/200 with a 100mm f/3.5 Kodak Anastigmat Special. Its original price is recorded only as "225," with no currency stated.
Period coverage is scattered. A 1930s issue of Radio-Craft (as reprinted in a period miscellany) noted that Kodak's new six-20 cameras with electronically-controlled 1/25-1/200 shutter speeds would set a photo enthusiast back $225, and that "radio entered the camera field" as a result. That's a reference to the Super Kodak Six-20's electric-eye mechanism. Contemporary contests also used the Senior Six-20 with f/4.5 lens (worth about $29.50) as a prize, per 1938 listings in Radio Guide.
Surviving documentation on the ordinary Brownie Six-20s is thin. No dimensions, weights, or production quantities are recorded, and most specs rest on single sources. Condition varies widely. Examples turn up new-in-box and working, but just as often with rust, cloudy finders, defective shutters, and deteriorated bellows. One long-term user noted that a Brownie Target Six-20 can still take good photos after fifty years.
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