Condition: Excellent

Polaroid Camera with Microscope adaptation

Excellent cosmetic condition

Shutter only works as a B setting

General Polaroid Information

The Polaroid Corporation was founded in 1937 by Edwin H. Land. The original name was Land-Wheelwright Laboratories. It was renamed after their first product Polaroid. Polaroid meaning Polarize and the suffix -oid as in to make. It is most famous for its instant film cameras, which reached the market in 1948, and continued to be the company's flagship product line. The company's original dominant market was in polarized sunglasses, an outgrowth of Land's self-guided research in polarization after leaving Harvard University at 17 (he later returned to Harvard to continue his research). In 1944, while on vacation in Santa Fe, New Mexico Edwin Lands' daughter asked why she has to wait to see a photo he took of her. Research started in developing an instant photography system the same year. In Christmas 1946, the company assembled in a movie theater showing the Jack Benny movie The Horn Blows at Midnight. In the movie, an instant passport-type camera is shown, and Land announced to the confusion of his employees This is SX70 without further explanation. In February 1947, Land demonstrated a one-step, one minute photographic process at the Optical Society of America.

The first camera sold was the Model 95 in November 26. 1948 in a Jordan Marsh department store in Boston, Massachusetts. Polaroid started working with Timex; mostly known for manufacturing timepieces. Roll film as well as pack film cameras were manufactured at their Little Rock, Arkansas plant. In 1958, 4x5 instant sheet film was released. The system allows using instant film with 4x5 cameras by loading instant film sheets into a Polaroid holder. In the 1960's Polaroid made many cameras and systems designed for industrial and professional use. Most well known are passport, macro and copy cameras. Their first camera with an 'electric eye' was released called the Polaroid Model 900. Nippon Polaroid Kabushiki Kaisha (Polaroid Japan) and Polaroid Italy is establish. In 1963, instant pack film was introduced with the Polaroid Land Model 100 camera. By this time over five million Polaroid instant cameras have been manufactured. Entry level consumer cameras were introduced most famous was the Polaroid Swinger for under $20.

In 1972, the SX70 system was introduced. This is a new OneStep instant photo system that has self contained developing, timing with motor driven automatic film ejection. This reduces 'PolaTrash' as the previous systems requires discarding a lot of wasted materials.

After Polaroid defeated Kodak in a patent battle, Kodak left the instant camera business on January 9, 1986.

Early instant cameras were often named "Land Cameras," named after the inventor of the instant process, Dr. Land. Instant cameras have been produced to use three main categories of film: rollfilm, packfilm, and integral film. All of these films can be expensive, usually costing about $1 per shot, or print. Through its history, Polaroid has been known as a company that builds quirky cameras cheaply that work quite well. Most Polaroid cameras have fully automatic exposure systems, with an electric eye to determine correct exposure. Quality can range from extremely good, as in the Pathfinder or SX-70 cameras, to extremely poor, as in the JoyCam. Despite its history of innovation, the company entered the digital photography market very late, and as a result has neither a significant market share nor significant innovation in this area.

Professional applications of the Polaroid instant film and cameras were as screen-shot cameras for scientific instruments, passport / identity photos, or large format cameras of other manufacturers equipped with Polaroid sheet film holders or pack film backs. Polaroid shots were often used to test studio lighting setups before use of other types of film or camera, before the instant playback of digital cameras became available.

The company filed for federal bankruptcy protection in October 11, 2001, and most of the business was thereafter carried on by the Polaroid Holding Company (PHC), managed by Bank One. Much criticism surrounded this takeover because the process left executives of the company with large bonuses, while stockholders, as well as current and retired employees, were left with nothing. Polaroid's bankruptcy was widely believed to be the result of the failure of its senior management to see the effect of digital cameras on its film business, a fate that also befell its primary rival, Kodak. Since the bankruptcy Polaroid-branded LCD and Plasma televisions and portable DVD players have appeared on the market.

On April 27, 2005, Petters Group Worldwide announced its acquisition of PHC. Petters has in the past bought up failed companies with well-known names for the value of those names. The same year, Flextronics purchased Polaroid's manufacturing operations and the decision was made to send most of the manufacturing to China. In September 2008, the Petters Group was infiltrated by the FBI on evidence of a $3.7 billion investment fraud. In October 2008, Petters Group Worldwide filled for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Thomas J. Petters was sentenced to 50 years in prison for the fraud.

In March 2009, following bankruptcy proceedings, the Polaroid brand name was sold once more to Hilco Consumer Capital and Gordon Brothers Brands. It is now known as PLR IP Holdings, LLC. At the time of writing, no film is being manufactured under the famous name, but various projects are being undertaken by people wishing to revive the Polaroid format.

In January 2009 Polaroid introduced the digital instant camera PoGo TWO, a variant of Polaroid's portable PoGo photo printer with built-in digicam. The very compact PoGo printers use special "Zink" paper for ink-free printing.

In May, 2017 PLR IP Holdings, LLC was sold to Wiaczeslaw Smolokowski who also is majority shareholder of Impossible. It was announced in Sept 2017 that Impossible will now use the Polaroid Originals branding on their products.

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