Polaroid Swinger

Polaroid Model 20 "Swinger"

A bit of a find today. Inside my old Thorndike-Barnhart Junior Dictionary I found eight Swinger photos I took in 1966-68. These are the only surviving photos from that camera, which I got for Christmas 1966. I was surprised to find them. Although I really wanted the camera at the time the expensive film soon relegated it to the closet shelf and the quick deterioration of the prints meant that most of them were trashed years ago; not entirely a bad thing as it was a 20-month period of vague depression and reminders are not really welcome.

The Polaroid Model 20 "Swinger" was sold between 1965 and 1970. At $19.95 it was the first truly inexpensive instant camera, a fact that helped fuel its enormous popularity and made it one of the top-selling cameras of all time. The Swinger was especially successful in the youth market due to its low price, stylish appearance, and catchy "Meet the Swinger" jingle sung by Barry Manilow in a television advertisement featuring a young Ali MacGraw.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9lvcFlUBxM

The Swinger featured an extinction exposure meter tied to the aperture which displayed the word "YES" in a window below the viewfinder when the exposure was set correctly. The Swinger also included a built-in flashgun for AG-1 flashbulbs.

The Swinger used Polaroid's 20-Series roll film, which was the first Polaroid roll film to develop outside the camera.

The image size was only 2-1/8" x 2-7/8", really too small given that the cheap lens was designed to take very wide shots - the idea being that everything but a macro shot would be in focus. Wide shots meant the subject became distant and the frame full of surrounding objects - meaning there would be too much scene to be adequately viewed on such a small print.

Almost 50 years later the other huge defect is nicely illustrated by the above photo. I have brightened it up a bit in Photoshop because it had become too dark over the years - despite never being exposed to light during that time. The image had to be "fixed" with a gel or it would fade completely, any portion with only a thin coating of gel would eventually disappear as well - as seen in certain parts of this example. A quick application of the gel was usually uneven and Polaroid was too interested in promoting the ease of operation to emphasize the care that must be taken to evenly apply sufficient gel with a longer drying time.

http://www.shorpy.com/node/10950

Click above for someone with similar "Swinger" camera memories.

Swinger Photo of the Strongsville High School - 1967 Bowling Champions

Clockwise from top left: Jeff Ewing, Don Menzies, Ted Rumbaugh, and Gary Farkas.

Swinger Photo of our 1966 Christmas tree in Strongsville, probably the first photo I took with the camera as the gifts are open. Note the Africa Corps game and my first AM/FM radio to the right of the Swinger box. I also recognize a box of Faultless golf balls and a box of English Leather cologne.

Swinger Photo of our 1967 Christmas tree, that is probably my mother and the white stuff coming out of the right frame are Christmas cards hung on wall.

Swinger Photo of Cousin Doug Semler in front of our 1967 Christmas tree. He is lifting a barbell set I received that morning; under the tree is a Bill Cosby Album (who would have imagined that would one day be controversial), a George Plimpton paperback, a golf board game and box of balls, a Stalingrad game, and a Simon & Garfunkel album. From the early 1950's until the late 1970's our two families celebrated a second Christmas with each other in the afternoon, with our Grandmother Chesrown. These alternated between Jeromesville, Ashland, and Strongsville. These extremely enjoyable gatherings would end with the start of a 12-year family feud in 1977.

Both of my early cameras were rewards for selling greeting cards or flower seeds door-to-door, ads for this were printed on the back of many comic books and I was pretty successful disposing of the inventory they sent me. In retrospect an interesting dynamic for a shy person. Each approach was a challenge and I was motivated enough to push myself forward most of the time, and a successful sale under such circumstances was doubly sweet because it was not just a step closer to the reward but also a victory over my fear. Perhaps I had already guessed that it was the beginning of a life-long war for me, a war which would never end no matter how many battles I won. But one where the stakes were simply too high to choose not to fight it.