Imperial Mark XII Flash!!!!! (!!!)

Fancy name for a crappy plastic camera. The Imperial Mark XII Flash (!!! added for extra oomph) was made by Herbert-George Co. sometime in the middle to late 1950s.


Like the Valiant previously talked about, the Mark XII came in many colors: light blue, brown, mint green, black, and a few others. There are also two different logos on the front...the circle seen here and another with a kind of square shape. I'm not sure exactly who these cameras were marketed to. The multiple colors make it seem kind of like a children's camera. Maybe women and children. It certainly couldn't be much more basic. Another funny-shaped box camera, really. Load, wind and shoot. This also has the same type of flash bracket as the Valiant. Again, I don't have the flash. I think the only (old) camera that I have an exterior flash for is my Argoflex Seventy-Five, but I haven't use it. They use those big flash bulbs that will probably blow up and kill someone.


The "Imperial" name actually shows up on different cameras from the same company...all 620 or 127, I believe. This camera takes 620 film. I've had this camera for a couple years, but it's such a pain in the ass to load that I never bothered using it until recently. The spool brackets move and the spools come out while you are trying to put the back on. Really annoying...but not as much as when I tried a few years ago. I guess I have a lot more experience loading difficult cameras (like my Snappy, with the spool brackets not even attached to the camera anymore).
So how does it shoot? My first roll was Kodak Verichrome, expired April 1962. Same as my first roll through the Valiant.




Looks like a toy camera! Takes a nice shot. It's got vignette and blur, but it's still sharp in the middle. The frames are so close that they often overlap. Oh, and very wobbly along the edges. The proof is in the pudding...if only it wasn't such a pain to load.
My next roll through was color. I rerolled Vericolor HC, expired May 1995, onto a 620 spool. For some reason, I had an incredibly difficult time spooling it to develop, and managed to crinkle the hell out of it. That's what happens after 15 minutes of sweaty anger in a dark bathroom. Owell. So this roll has green spirits all over it. And this is my sixth roll through my expired Nova color developer. My seventh roll was Kodak T400CN black and white film. Turned out very nice, I'll post shots later.



Kind of boring roll, but more of the same, except in color! Funny looking little camera, takes funny little pictures...well, funny big pictures. Another hit!