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This 16mm camera dates from 1950 and was made by the Keystone Manufacturing Company from Boston, which advertised this Mayfair turret model as being faultless, easy loading, inexpensive, and the choice for consumers that wanted to make “magnificent movies.”
The Mayfair was one of many camera models made by Keystone (which also manufactured and sold toys), including types for instant, disc, 35mm, 126, and 110 film. Keystone cameras were notable for having a built-in electronic flash rather than flash bulbs or flash cubes. Many of the low-cost Mayfair models reputedly are still being used today.
The Mayfair came in a leather case that included a telephoto lens, a lens filter, and a 30-page instruction manual. In 1956, the list price was $189.50.
In a catalogue from 1953 that traced the company history, Keystone described its first cameras — introduced when “movies were still a tremendous novelty”— as “ingenious devices but … not very pretty!" The catalogue admitted that the shape of Keystone’s early 16mm and 8mm cameras made them uncomfortable to hold, and they were "crude and clumsy” by then-current standards.
But the catalogue also boasted that Keystone engineers had designed “some of the most startling advances in home-movie equipment,” including the "unique optical Magnafinder … which adapts quickly and conveniently for various lenses.” Another point of pride was that “tolerances as close to 3/10,000 of an inch are standard practice” thanks to a “bank of intricate Swiss-type machines” adapted from watch-making machinery “that perform multiple operations automatically.”
Keystone was founded in 1910. The brand name ended in 1991.