Monarch Royal Reflex (c. 1939)
Documentation on the Monarch Royal Reflex is thin, but what survives is clear enough. The Royal Reflex is a pseudo-TLR - a Bakelite box camera styled to look a bit like a twin-lens reflex. Monarch Manufacturing Company introduced it in 1939. It belongs to the group of cameras made by the so-called "Chicago Cluster" in the 1940s, alongside models like the Boumsell Longchamp and Monarch's own Flex-Master.
The Royal Reflex shoots 127 film. Exposure control is basic but real. Besides a bulb/time pose setting, the camera offers three aperture stops, with a maximum opening of f:7.7. That's the extent of the documented technical detail. No shutter speed list, no lens construction notes and no dimensions appear in the surviving record.
Collectors should watch the dating. Period sources point to a 1939 introduction and 1940s production, yet resale listings often call this a "Vintage 1950s" camera. That dating likely reflects when these cameras were commonly sold or used secondhand, not a manufacturer claim. Current asking prices in aggregator listings hover around $60 USD (with one Canadian listing at roughly C$84). Asking prices are not the same as realized sales.
What's genuinely known, in short:
- Pseudo-TLR box camera in Bakelite
- 127 film format
- Three apertures, maximum f:7.7, plus a bulb/time setting
- Introduced 1939 by Monarch Manufacturing Company; part of the Chicago Cluster production group
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