05/26/2026
The company that made this camera should have been more well-known Kodak. In the early 1880s, photography used chemically coated glass slides for film. The plates were heavy, breakable, and took up a lot of space. Chemist and inventor Hannibal Goodwin figured out the right recipe to make celluloid plastic film sheets so they were uniformly smooth and clear, a way to protect the celluloid from the harsh photographic chemicals, and a process to keep the chemicals stuck to the film. He applied for a patent in 1887, which was right when George Eastman and Henry Reichenbach began creating their own film that turned out to be the exact same as Goodwin’s. They applied for their patent in 1889, and it was approved two years later, while Goodwin’s wasn’t approved until 1899. Why was that? Eastman was smarter in how he wrote his application, had high-priced lawyers who challenged every aspect of Goodwin’s application, and used his clout in Washington to speed things up. A year after Goodwin got his patent, he started his film manufacturing company, but was run over by a streetcar and killed a few months later. His widow sold the Goodwin Film & Camera Company to the guys who later formed Ansco. Ansco sued Eastman and won $5 million for patent infringement, but Eastman-Kodak had already been selling film for well over ten years and had pretty much captured the market. Ansco sold film until 1967 and then rebranded to GAF, but both companies were also-rans to Kodak.
Ansco made and sold cameras until they were bought out in 1978, and the new owners continued to sell cheap Ansco-labeled cameras into the early 1990s. Our Ansco Goodwin Model is a bit earlier than that, having been made from the late ‘20s into the ‘30s. The wooden box and leatherette covering are in good condition and all the mechanisms work as they’re supposed to. All four corners on the box top are torn, but the box itself is fine. We have it marked at $20
Here are two short videos about the glass plate photographic process Goodwin and Eastman worked at replacing with celluloid:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pNyQ0nfMsxo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdbx7zDfvwg
