A few years ago, I came across a camera at a little vintage market. Usually cameras like this aren’t worth much now since they were mass produced and inexpensive, and not very complicated, making them pretty accessible. For whatever reason, it sparked my eye, and I picked it up only to find that it was still full of undeveloped film. Well, it obviously had to come home with me. The camera is a Brownie Starmite II and I’ll leave the folks at the Camerapedia to go into the details if you want them. The film inside was 127 film, probably still from the 1960s when the camera was made, so I knew the folks at Old School Photo Lab could handle it just fine. I saw there was a frame left, so I shot that off (last photo below), then wound up the film and sent it off for processing. In a matter of days, the scrappy Lab Rats at the film lab had emailed me the scans and popped the negatives (and reel) in the mail. The images are below. I don’t know anything about who owned the camera prior to my finding it or where it might have been used, but judging by the clothing, it’s probably about 1960s, and somewhere that it gets cold enough to ice skate, so it’s entirely possible the photos are of a family in the Philadelphia area where the camera was purchased. Maybe some day I might be able to reconnect these photos with the family who left them behind in the camera! Click any photo to see the full size. The camera is probably still usable since there’s not much to it in terms of moving parts, no battery, etc, and you can still find 127 film albeit at ~$13/roll. It would be fun to run a roll of film through this just for kicks someday.
