Invention
Walter Zapp (04.09.1905 Riga, Latvia - 17.07. 2003 Binningen, Switzerland) is the inventor of the Minox camera. His family belonged to the ethnic minority of baltic germans in Latvia. The family
later moved to Tallin, Estonia where Walter invented and assembled
the very first Minox. He later successfully signed a deal with
the company VEF in Riga, Latvia to manufacture and sell it worldwide.
Minox timeline:
- 1922 - Before the Minox
- 1922 - First
inspirations
- 1928 - First
camera proposal
- 1929 - First
camera sketches send to Leica
- 16.08.1932 - Partnership
to design a camera
- 1934 - Minox
proposal
- 1934 - Wooden model
- Late 1934 - Concept finalised & lens and shutter design
- 19.01.1935 - first technical drawings
- 16.08.1935 - technical drawings complete!
- Late 1935 - making parts
- 1936 - A Minox is born!
- Summer 1936 - The Minox is ready!
- Fall 1936 - No response from Agfa
- August 1936 - Setting up an appointment with VEF
- 1936 - Pitching to VEF
- 06.10.1936 - A deal is signed!
- December 1936 - Patent applications are made
Before the Minox
Estonia
1922 Lemberg - Entry ticket to the photographic world
Walter Zapp worked in 1922 for photographic studio of Walter Lemberg.
There he used extremely large cameras to take a picture.They were
bulky, required a lot of adjustments and were not what Walter
considered very practical. His first inspirations for a more user
friendly camera were born. At Lemberg, he met Waldemar Nylander.
Through him he met his younger brother Nikolai and the two became good
friends. He worked there until 1924.
1925 Rambach - First design experience
He started to work for Rambach, a photographic apparatus dealer in
Reval in 1925. He also started to design and invent and filed his first
patent in 1925, a paper-cutting machine for photographs. He left
Rambach in 1926
Between 1926 and 1928 times were difficult and Walter took odd jobs
including some in advertising.
1928 Akel - First camera design experience
In 1928 he managed to enter the photographic industry again and started
at Akel, a photo-finishing business. There he was very inventive and
participated in the design of a semi-automatic camera.
During that time Nikolai introduced him to the businessman Richard
Juergens. According toFor Richard Juergens he started to design photographic
enlargers. In
the summer of 1928, Walter Zapp proposed to him the idea to design a
camera. In
1929 he send is own camera ideas and sketches to Leica's chief designer
Oskar Barnack.
1928 Meeting Richard Juergens.
The story goes that Nikolai Nylander introduced Richard Juergens to Walter Zapp. Richard required a specially adapted photographic enlarger and Walter Zapp was the man for the job. Walter Zapp did not
think much of Richard Juergens at first. He thought he did not
understand or wanted to understand technical aspects and appeared to be
only a common ameuter photographer who wanted to take pictures. Richard
according to Walter Zapp also asked what he, Walter, thought about this
crazy trend of miniature cameras and when people would stop chasing it.
Richard did not believe at all in the smaller negative format. Walter
disagreed and said that this trend was not about to end any time soon.
He did take Richards job and made the specified enlarger for him. He
also propsed to him the idea to design a camera but Richard was not
interested. It would take 4 more years for this to change.
1932 Partnership with Juergens
Several years later on the 16 of August 1932
did Richard and Walter revisited the original idea and agreed on a
partnership to design a camera. Juergens would financially support
Walter and then both would share equally any financial gains. Still
Richard was thinking of a more normal sized camera but Walter secretly
continued on his subminiature camera design. For almost two years
Walter worked on the project and used up almost all Richards funds.
Only in 1934 did he come clean and propsed the Minox design
1934 Minox proposal
To
convince Richard to change direction and support Walters idea of a
(sub)miniature camera he used an analogy. He told a story referring to
the current and outdated large format photography as a big and
slowly sinking ocean liner. The only rescue were the small lifeboats,
again a reference to the trend of miniature cameras. With that he
showed Richard the wooden Minox model and propsed to him the idea of
the Minox design. Richard agreed and from that moment on all efforts
were made to realise this revolutionary camera design.
- 1934 - Wooden model
- Late 1934 - final concept & lens and shutter design
- 19.01.1935 - first technical drawings
- 16.08.1935 - technical drawings complete!
- Late 1935 - making parts
The wooden model
The technical drawings for the Ur-Minox
1936 A Minox is born!
Estonia
The parts were not made by
Walter Zapp but he made the final alterations to them and bit by bit
assembled the very first Minox. In the summer of 1936, the Minox was
born and ready to be tested
The specifications are:
Walter Zapp and his
friend Nikolai Nylander spend hours discussing potential names. While
playing around with worlds like Mina, Minou, Minna, Nikolai threw in
the Minox.
They searched for a partner to preduce the camera in Estonia but soon
had to look elswhere as Estonia was very small. They tried contacting
companies like the german AGFA but finally a meeting with english representative of VEF (Janis Vitols?) proved fruitful. The representative
set up a meeting with Teodor Vitols, the general director of VEF
in Latvia and they all travelled to Riga.
1936 Pitching to VEF
Traveling to
Latvia. On 07. September 1936, the team meets the VEF executives in
Riga. Nylander who was a great photographer and famous in his own
right must have put together a very convincing display of test shots
for Walter.
Photographs taken with the Ur-Minox for VEF? (Walter Zapp, name? dog of?, Jutta Juergens)
They were so good, that Teodor Vitols was not convinced that this
camera actually produced these pictures. He was convinced that these
pictures which Walter Zapp and his team showed him were doctored. So he
demaned that Walter Zapp made new pictures there and then of one of the
VEF employees. Walter was not prepared at all for this. Luckily VEF had
a complete photographic studio in house and with their equipment they
managed to print their first VEF test picture 3/4 hours later.
[photo]
Upon viewing the photo, Teodor shook Walters hand and said: Congratulations! .. and the first preliminary deal was signed
One month
later on the 6th of October 1936, Walter Zapp and Richard Juergens agreed on the final terms of the contract
Immediately
Walter Zapp moved to Riga to help in the redesign of his camera and the
create the asseccoires which were part of the contract between him and
VEF.