The camera in the photo at the top of the page is a Univex 8mm Cine Camera, model A8.

First produced in 1936, the Univex was made by the Universal Camera Corporation in New York. The Ilex Univar F:5.6 lens was made by the Ilex Optical Company of Rochester, NY. According to John Wade’s Cine Cameras, the Univex 8mm Cine Camera Model A8 cost $9.95 and held a 30-foot spool of film, intended to run through one time. As indicated on the side of the camera, these cameras had a meter to keep track of the amount of exposed footage.

The camera in the photos was my grandfather’s camera. Along with a tin-full of photograph negatives, we found this camera in the house where he and my grandmother owned in southwest BC. There was still a reel of 8mm film in the camera. Much of the film had deteriorated extensively, but what was salvageable we developed. My grandfather filmed a selection of footage sometime in the late 30s or early 40s: some outdoors shots and images of a girlfriend he must have had before he met my grandmother in Ireland during WWII.