Mansfield Skylark

Mansfield Skylark
image by Zardoz17 (Image rights)

Mansfield Skylark (by Yamato)
image by Diana Houlihan (Image rights)

Skylark is the name of no less than four rebadged cameras sold by Mansfield Industries of Chicago, Illinois:

the 1957 Skylark, rebadged from the Argon^[1] rangefinder camera which was the export version of the Windsor 35 by Tōkō Shashin. This rangefinder camera featured a 45mm / f1.9 lens, shutter speeds B, 1s to 1/500s (a much higher specification than the early-50s Windsor 35 in the current Camera-wiki.org article).
the 1957 Skylark E was a Royal 35M by Royal Camera Company, rebadged for Mansfield. Like the 35M, this rangefinder camera had a Tominar 45mm / f1.9-f16 lens, shutter speeds B, 1s to 1/500s with an uncoupled selenium meter,
the 1957 Skylark V, from the Royal 35P, was a meterless rangefinder camera with a Cimenar 45mm / f1.9-f16 lens, shutter speeds B, 1s to 1/300s.
the 1961 Mansfield Skylark was a slightly modified Palmat Automatic by Yamato Optical Company. This last Skylark was an fixed-focus automatic-exposure viewfinder camera with coupled selenium meter, Mantar or Luminor 40mm / f4 lens, shutter speeds B, 1/10s to 1/200s. It does not take a battery, its selenium meter was driven by light alone. Exposure compensation was set by a lever on the numbered scale on the lens, based on an ASA/DIN film guide inset on the camera’s lift-off back. This was the only Skylark that was actually engraved with “Mansfield” as well as the “MI” crest logo seen on the earlier versions.