MINOX CAMERA

The Latvian engineer Walter Zapp wanted to create a portable camera that would fit easily into the palm of the hand and yet take high quality, spontaneous pictures. The Minox subminiature camera, in its various models, was for years the world’s most widely used spy camera . Considered a marvel of technology when it first became available, the camera was originally produced from 1937 - 1944 in Riga. It used film one quarter the size of standard 35 mm film, with 50 frames loaded in a cassette. The ultralight aluminum shell Minox B was produced from 1958 to 1972. Because of its small size, it was easy to conceal and operate in one hand. It could take excellent photographs of documents at close range and was a natural for clandestine photography. The Minox C was introduced in 1969. Convicted spy John A. Walker, Jr., used a Minox C supplied by the KGB, an electronic shutter camera no longer in production, to photograph sensitive National Security Agency codes for the Soviets.