Puck Camera

Thornton-Pickard Puck box camera, in leather and textile bag.

This is a “Puck” box camera, manufactured by Thornton-Pickard.

Thornton-Pickard was a camera manufacturer, founded in Manchester 1888 by John Thornton and Edgar Pickard, and based in Altrincham from 1891. The firm gradually grew to become an important camera manufacturer in the years leading up to the First World War, when the company was heavily involved in making military aircraft cameras. By the 1920s Thornton-Pickard’s cameras were becoming old-fashioned, leading the firm to launch several new products in an attempt to remain competitive.

The Puck was a simple box camera aimed at the amateur photographer snapshot market, manufactured between the mid-1920s and mid-1930s. Following the success of Kodak’s famous “Brownie” camera, many other camera makers began offering similar low-cost box cameras, which introduced many people to photography by allowing them to easily take snapshots of their daily lives and their families and friends. The Puck was aimed at the same market and, like the more famous “Brownie”, is likely named after a mischievous spirt from folklore. Retailing at the relatively low price of 8 shillings and sixpence in 1929, the Puck used convenient no.120 roll film and had a simple fixed lens, with separate viewfinders for landscape and portrait. Like most of Thornton-Pickard’s products, it was solidly made with a traditional wood camera body, rather than the cardboard of cheaper cameras or the lightweight aluminium of more innovative designs.