The first Kodak camera in 1888 was a simple box camera. For that one you had to send the whole camera back to Kodak after you had taken 100 pictures and they would put in a new roll of film.

Over the years while Kodak was making other other kinds of cameras, they also kept making box camera models. This one is the Brownie Target Six-20 that was made from 1946 to 1952. It sold for $3.50. The gold-colored lines on the front made it look a little nicer.

It has two viewfinders. One on the top was when you were making portrait photos and the one on the side, facing you, was for making landscape photos.

The shutter is just a simple metal tab on the leading edge. There is another tab just above the shutter that holds the face to the body of the camera. That actually gets in the way of the shutter.

To open the camera you have to do two things. First slightly pull out the film winder. Then the front knob that holds the handle is pulled up while you pull the on the face. That pulls out the whole guts out of the outside case. Then you can change size 620 film.

There was no way to add a flash to any box camera so you could only use them outside. All the box cameras lasted for years. The first problem would be that the leather strap on the top would break. I was at an estate sale last month and they had about 30 various old models of box cameras for $5 and there weren’t selling. They were just to plain.