Merlin Novelty Subminiature camera

A vintage Black Merlin Sub Miniature Camera, Made in England

You are bidding on a vintage black Merlin Sub Miniature Camera, made in England. What a wonderful little collector's camera. In very good condition — a nice collectible camera.


Description

Subminiature camera pretty made in England (circa 1936). United Optical is the Merlin. A small camera with a metal body and single shutter speed. Its dimensions are approximately 46x35x46 mm. It uses a special film roll measuring about 20x20 mm negative. Merlin is a subminiature camera with a molten metal body, using a special 20 mm roll film. A roll of film frames produces seven 18x18 mm images. It was manufactured by United Optical Instruments of Southend-on-Sea, England—possibly in the late 1930s. It has a single shutter speed and an f/16 fixed-focus lens. The body features a viewfinder frame that folds up and is finished with a crackle-effect paint, available in red, blue, green, and black.


History
In 1936, the English firm, United Optical Instruments, 162 High Street, Southend-on-Sea, Essex, marketed the Merlin, a cast metal novelty camera fastened together with two screws. It is one of the strongest cameras ever made, easily tough enough to withstand the weight of a full-grown man, although now it is just as likely to fracture in your hand.
The Merlin was sold in black, blue, green, and red with a crackle finish enamel.
It used a special 20mm roll film taking 20 exposures of 18x18 mm. It had a single-speed shutter and an f/16 lens.
It has a collapsible sports finder, a polished metal winding knob, and an instantaneous shutter.

Some cameras have an orange transfer on the underside that displays the camera name. This transfer is usually well worn or missing, leaving a faint trace of its outline.
A later version of it has a lock for the back of the camera.


Merlin was used (without the finder frames) as the bowels of the chamber of the gun ERAC mercury.
The Merlin was used (without the frame finder) as the innards of the ERAC.
Mercury pistol camera. In 1937, Steward patented a pistol-shaped device which he introduced to the market in the following years as the Erac Automatic Pistol Camera. The Erac Selling Company of London was actually based in Southend-on-Sea. This is a simple bakelite box in the shape of a snub-nosed pistol. The two halves of the case are held together with a single large screw. The large trigger-ratchet mechanism, when fired, operated the shutter and also advanced the film.
The box declared, 'ERAC – The camera that is always ready, the only real snapshot camera in the world. No film winding, just pull the trigger, and the camera takes care of everything.'



See pictures for cosmetic. All the pictures are from the object itself. What you see is what you will receive. The camera itself has not been tested by myself.
Please can you use the reference number “CAM046” in all our communications.

For your information, I will be selling about a hundred subminiature cameras from my collection in the coming months. So, if you are a collector, follow my account so you can keep up with my other items for sale in the upcoming months. Thank you for bidding.