FLASHBULBS!!!
Who remembers FLASHBULBS? I can’t remember the last time I saw them used; probably 30 years ago. But I can still remember the spots in my eyes when they went off!
For the past few months, I’ve been collecting some old Polaroid Land cameras for conversion to large format. Today, a Polaroid 250 camera arrived and amongst the little trinkets with the camera was a whole box of these M3 flashbulbs.
So what will I do with flashbulbs? Take pictures of my kids, just like flashbulbs were meant to do. None of my kids, even though they are grown now, have ever had flashbulb spots in their eyes. Now I’m sure they can go through life just fine without that experience, but I’m going to give it to then anyway! And it will be a good bit of retro fun for me to use them one last time.
Here’s a picture of a Polaroid 250 camera. I intend on just using the pack film back from it for one of my roll film Land camera conversions. The back has a very nice stainless steel frame. Made in the USA too. What a shame we don’t make stuff like this anymore. This was really a nice camera in its time and could still be quite useful.
If you have any interest in the Polaroid Land cameras, the Land List website is about as good as it gets.
Alex Hawley - large format analog photography 
If you decide you don’t want the M3’s, I’ll take them. 🙂 I have a nice stockpile that I use with my Model 100 Polaroid.
Somewhere I have a bunch of old flash bulbs. I’ll try to dig them out, and you guys can see if you can use them.
Back in the mid-90’s when I was working at Image Works we sold several huge boxes full of flash bulbs to a police department somewhere else. They were going to use them as simulated bombs for training purposes!
I remember playing with the flash cubes (the 4 sided ones, not the long bar style) and they had a mechanical firing mechanism. Pull on the little wire under the face you wanted to fire and it would pop. Never got one apart without it going off so I never did know if it was a simple flint striker or a piezeo (like gas grill lighters) element or even a coin cell!
Made a great trip-wire alarm for games of capture the flag.
Really nice style and superb subject material , hardly anything else we require : D.