Arthur H Crapsey

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Arthur H Crapsey was an influential camera designer working for Kodak, who had a hand in a great many designs. Between 1948 and 1958 Crapsey was credited with patents for a large number of cameras, including:

• Kodak Automatic 35
• Kodak Bantam RF
• Kodak Brownie Bull's-Eye
• Kodak Brownie Flash 20
• Kodak Brownie Hawkeye
• Kodak Brownie Holiday / Brownie Bullet
• Kodak Brownie Starflex
• Kodak Brownie Starlet
• Kodak Brownie Starmatic (with Mary Eaton)
• Kodak Pony 135 & 828
• Kodak Pony II (with Frank Zagara)
• Kodak Signet 35
• Kodak Signet 40
• Kodak Signet 50
• Kodak Signet 80
• Kodak Stereo

Crapsey was also granted patents for parts of cameras, over a long period (e.g. strap attaching device, US no. 2,521,903 (12 Sep 1950); a film cartridge, US no. 3,617,013 (2 Nov 1971) and US Patent US3658411 - Folded Path Zoom Lens (25 Apr 1972)) and his patents are referenced by many later patentees (e.g. for the Lomo Dalek/Supersampler, US Patent D476674 -1 Jul 2003).

Crapsey is acknowledged as the main designer of the Kodak Brownie Star series. He had possibly been inspired in some designs by Walter Dorwin Teague.

Sources

• Soloway, Rick and Ralph London, "Some Camera Designs of Arthur Crapsey, Henry Dreyfuss and Raymond Loewy", Photographica Digest (official journal of the Western Photographic Historical Society), Vol. 13, No. 11, Nov. 2006.
• London, Ralph and Rick Soloway, "Camera Designs of Walter Dorwin Teague", Photographic Canadiana, Dec 2006, Toronto, Canada.
• Free Patents Online

Links

• US Patent D185594 which became the Starmatic