In the course of looking for mentions of Circle 6 for the 600th circulation I had to research a number of older Magazines issued in th UK in the years after 1938 when we were founded. Apart from the usual British publications I have a number of bound Magazines from the period issued in the U.S.
The one that has been of particular interest is MINICAM PHOTOGRAPHY from 1946 and 1947 which I have never really read before. This is a small size magazine but ran to 144 pages although in 1946 it appeared only bi-monthly making six appearances a year. Printed on quality gloss paper the reproduction of many photographs could be appreciated but, no doubt for economy, the majority of smaller adverts and longer articles appeared on lower grade unglazed stock. Colour pages were included, often a very high quality advertisement from Kodak showing things that could only be dreamt of in the United Kingdom. We were mired in rationing for years to come with import restrictions on quality cameras to run for another 10 years. In particular, the presence of shots from Florida and California during the winter of 1947 may have been rather depressing over here.
The speed of recovery after the war was remarkable and there is little trace of reliance on older home manufactured designs from pre-war days. Naturally my interest has been in the advertising of Leitz ( N.Y) and references to newly imported Leica cameras. I have shown below a number of adverts for the imported products which were just getting back to the U.S. in controlled amounts. Also, for the short lived Focomat enlarger that was produced in the States, as was a selection of lenses.
Of special interest to me is the Hansa Canon review with a f3.5 Nikon lens. I bought one of these second hand in 1963 when it was well worn but found the shutter and rangefinder of excellent quality. The lens was uncoated but I am surprised to read that it was of six element construction. Results on negative film were acceptable but colour slides not so good having that lack of contrast and saturation associated with uncoated complex lenses.
