Champion Miniature

The Made-In-Chicago Museum has collected, so far, 17 bakelite minicams, all produced by the same Chicago manufacturer in the 1940s, but sold under roughly forty-two gazillion different brand AND manufacturer names.

This particular “candid type camera” (they had to say “type” because it wasn’t legally classifiable as a real candid camera) was called the Champion, and while our artifact labels the manufacturer as “The Camera Man,” the same camera was also produced under the banner of Lee Industries.