The Commemorative Issue

The mind is a funny thing. We tend to forget things until we remember them. Stomachs are also odd - you get all hungry and faint until you eat dinner and then you are not. These two principles have guided many camera manufacturers to release commemorative camera models - they remind you of something, you think about buying it, they get your money, and then they buy dinner.

The recent release of a special model of a camera to commemorate their awards for that camera model seemed to be a new departure. Nice camera, works superbly, interesting colour, tortured premise.

No more so, though, than the ones that have been issued to commemorate the lapse of a 99-year political treaty, the four-year Olympic show, or the name of a famously reclusive photographer. Or you can ask for your own name to be engraved somewhere. Users of Minx B cameras would be well advised to have a name like " Bob " or " Sam " to have this idea succeed...

At least the camera makers have not given in to the " Special Edition " fever of the automotive manufacturers of the 1980's...those lame swooping graphics plastered on the sides of humble passenger cars and vans to make them desirable. In some cases the stickers lasted longer than the cars. They were also the sort of designs that first-year graphics art students tend to do. ( Once they get better they tend to burn their first-year designs...) With the possible exception of Lomo, most commemorative camera paint or chrome jobs are at least explainable.

Flapoflex also are planning to issue their commemorative camera - it shows an engraving of an old fashioned brass merchant's scales. It celebrates the first time their books have balanced in 100 years. Accountants are studying this camera closely.

Students of history will note that we are about to have a set of big 100-year anniversaries occur over the next four years. Let us hope that the commemorative issues from Krupp, Vickers, Skoda, and such are intended merely for display, and not use. Or at least if they are making 420mm howitzers, we can get them in pastel colours.