My Spy Camera!

I now own a genuine piece of Cold War history: a Minox Spy Camera! And it is jewel! And has got to rank as one of my top flea market finds: yes, I found it at a junk sale. Pays to rummage.

Anyway, I did a bit of research on this particular model and found it was made in the mid 1950's - smack in the middle of the Cold War. And it was a best seller: intelligence services all over the world were buying them. And spies really used 'em. And not just movie spies, but real life break-in-to-the-office-and-shoot-the-secret-documents-before-the-guard-comes-back type spies! Back in the day, this camera was standard equipment for any self-respecting spy. Now, it is mine!

It is probably the smallest precision film camera ever made. Measures a bit over 3” x 1” and a shade under 3/4” thick;  in that space the Minox folks managed to build a camera with 373 parts. Film was in a tiny cassette that held 40 shots. This camera was invented by a guy named Walter Zapp and first made in the mid 1930's in Estonia and then Latvia (or maybe they were made in Latvia first and then........eh, whatever). He was, he said, out to make a camera that was easy to carry and use and be a camera 'for everyone.'

Turned out it was not quite for everyone, just the ones who had some big bucks to toss around. Figure one of these babies went for close to the cost of a car.  Or a bribe to get out of Nazi Germany. So, it became a luxury item. No worries for Mr. Zapp because we had WW II. And spying was suddenly not only big business, but also a venue – and market! - for high tech gadgetry, and Minox cameras were suddenly very desirable. The war also put a crimp on stuff coming from that part of the world to our side if the Atlantic including those same Minox cameras, so the government (that is, OUR government) bought up as many as were on the market and then tried to 'appropriate' as many as they could find. For the war effort.  

The history of this particular one is appropriately amazing.  As it was passed on to me, this camera was for many years the personal property of an Eastern European lady (code name: Boom-Boom) who fell on hard times and hocked it. Back in the day, she freelanced for both sides during WW II. Later on she went on to work for one of those three letter agencies that doesn't exist so I can't mention it. For many years she used this camera to surreptitiously shoot a whole lot of embarrassing snapshots of some famous people who were then induced to make large payments to her personal charity.  Needless to say, this pissed the off royally. Details of her exploits are sketchy and probably better left that way. Fact is, much of her 'service' is still classified. One top secret file mentions her as a confident of Baron Heinrich von Sheiskup, the infamous German kosher label counterfeiter while at the same time working as an escort in Yorkville and an heading up an all female outlaw Hassidic biker gang in Williamsburg where she .........OOPS! I was not supposed to mention any of that. Please ignore that reference. In fact, forget the whole thing. There is no such camera. And no Ms. Lipshitz. I made it all up. Photoshopped the photos from an ad in Fake Spy Magazine......

tatsu, as usual, is not impressed