Discovering history in unexpected ways
Jul 17, 2022 20:03:00 GMT
on Jul 17, 2022 20:03:00 GMT
Last Edit: Jul 17, 2022 20:14:42 GMT by lumiworx
As a preface... While poking around the web looking for details on Yashica's early electronics products mentioned in this topic, I stumbled onto a company, and it's story and history, that I never knew existed. I was searching specifically for anything related to the YP-500 portable phonograph player and radio combo under the image search functionality from Google. The thumbnail image I saw certainly wasn't a photo of a record player, but it appeared to be a banana yellow colored magazine ad, which I thought might have a listing for a YP-500. It lead me to a PDF copy of Blackhawk Films' - Bargain Bulletin #67, which did have several listings for Yashica TLR's in the used camera section, along with a very, very odd selection of film shorts that were up for sale - Hollywood, and otherwise - and even some 8mm/16mm cartoons, film projectors and editing gear, and various other prints and slide sets.
The contents of that PDF are not the usual sales items you'd see for any era, and certainly not what you'd see in the 50's and 60's. That lead me to search for the company itself, and it turns out they're still in business, although not as sellers of used gear, but with an astounding catalog of motion picture and still photo stock they rent, sell, and license. They own the rights to a large number of important and historical works (i.e., Sands of Iwo Jima), including the entire library of Republic Pictures (a small sampling of their films and serials), the Commonwealth Pictures library, and that also includes Van Beuren Cartoons (Woody Woodpecker, etc.), Charlie Chaplin Mutual Comedies, and lots of prime 35mm film material, like 1930's newsreels and 'serials' like King Of Rocket Men, and Roy Rogers.
The company website is here: www.fpa-blackhawk.com. They also restore films of all types, and do restoration work for the Library of Congress. USC's School of Cinematic Arts has their vintage catalogs in an online collection, as well as scans of 436 of the Bulletins posted here: www.uschefnerarchive.com/blackhawk-films-catalogs if you're interested in vintage gear and photos/slides/films they sold over the years.
One other fascinating cache of Photo and Electronics history that popped up in a similar fashion during this search session, is the catalogs of Lafayette Electronics, which were a national chain and the predecessor to Radio Shack. IMHO, they were the better supplier of finished goods and kits (i.e, Lafayette and 'Dynakit') than the R.S. stores, which were much more of a raw parts source than a regular brand name retailer. Worldofradiohistory.com has a massive collection of PDF's and a small part of them are from Lafayette, dating back to the 1920's. They were also a longtime Yashica dealer in the US and included them in their regular catalog, like this one from 1967, with the Lynx 5000 at $75.95, and the J-7 w/ Auto Yashinon DX f/1.7 SLR kit at $154.95, on page 36.
The contents of that PDF are not the usual sales items you'd see for any era, and certainly not what you'd see in the 50's and 60's. That lead me to search for the company itself, and it turns out they're still in business, although not as sellers of used gear, but with an astounding catalog of motion picture and still photo stock they rent, sell, and license. They own the rights to a large number of important and historical works (i.e., Sands of Iwo Jima), including the entire library of Republic Pictures (a small sampling of their films and serials), the Commonwealth Pictures library, and that also includes Van Beuren Cartoons (Woody Woodpecker, etc.), Charlie Chaplin Mutual Comedies, and lots of prime 35mm film material, like 1930's newsreels and 'serials' like King Of Rocket Men, and Roy Rogers.
The company website is here: www.fpa-blackhawk.com. They also restore films of all types, and do restoration work for the Library of Congress. USC's School of Cinematic Arts has their vintage catalogs in an online collection, as well as scans of 436 of the Bulletins posted here: www.uschefnerarchive.com/blackhawk-films-catalogs if you're interested in vintage gear and photos/slides/films they sold over the years.
One other fascinating cache of Photo and Electronics history that popped up in a similar fashion during this search session, is the catalogs of Lafayette Electronics, which were a national chain and the predecessor to Radio Shack. IMHO, they were the better supplier of finished goods and kits (i.e, Lafayette and 'Dynakit') than the R.S. stores, which were much more of a raw parts source than a regular brand name retailer. Worldofradiohistory.com has a massive collection of PDF's and a small part of them are from Lafayette, dating back to the 1920's. They were also a longtime Yashica dealer in the US and included them in their regular catalog, like this one from 1967, with the Lynx 5000 at $75.95, and the J-7 w/ Auto Yashinon DX f/1.7 SLR kit at $154.95, on page 36.