Le Carlton-Reflex est similar to the Utility Mfg Falcon Magni-Vue, including elements of graphic design in the decoration.

Allied Camera Supply is merely a retailer (or a fictional brand) that applied its label to a camera manufactured in Chicago. It's difficult to pinpoint the exact period when the camera was marketed under this brand.

A multitude of low-end cameras with many things in common come from the same Chicago neighborhood.



Available in many more or less fictitious brands, they all originate from a man named Jack Galter (1904-1993)

Dollie Galter, medical school and Chicago benefactor, dies at 97
by Emeline Cokelet
April 22, 2001 Original article in The daily Northwestern

Dollie Galter, a benefactor of Northwestern’s Medical School, died Tuesday of heart failure at Northwestern Memorial Hospital. She was 97.
Her donations to the Medical School in the early 1990s helped to build the Galter Health Sciences Library and the Galter Pavilion. Both gifts were $10 million.
Galter, who grew up in Chicago and San Francisco, knew more about history than anybody in Chicago, said her close friend Jane Canepa. She was born Sarah Miriam Schiff on Jan. 2, 1904. After graduating from Harrison High School in Evansville, she worked as a Western Union operator. In 1925 she married Jack Galter, a big band drummer.
Galter and her husband had only $100 when they were first married, but he eventually earned more money than they ever felt they needed, Canepa said.
Her husband later owned Spartus clock company, worked in real estate and invented razors “for the common man,” Canepa said. In 1943, the Galters formed the Galter Foundation and eventually donated more than $100 million to charities, the arts and several Chicago medical institutions. Jack Galter died in 1993.
Galter often said her husband made the money and she gave it away, Canepa said.
“What she used to say about Jack is that he had the Midas touch,” Canepa said. “Whatever he touched would turn to gold.”
The Galters donated money to several institutions, including Shaare Zedek Medical Center in Jerusalem, the Jewish Council for the Elderly, Advocate Lutheran General Hospital in Park Ridge, Maryville Academy in Des Plaines, the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago and Children’s Memorial Hospital.
Galter was most proud of the Galter LifeCenter, a health and fitness facility that she financed at Chicago’s Swedish Covenant Hospital, Canepa said. She also was pleased with the Galter Health Sciences Library, where she established “Dollie’s Corner,” which provides medical students with books on subjects beyond medicine.
Her donations also supported WTTW Channel 11 and the Newberry Library.
Galter’s longtime presence in Chicago gave her a wealth of historical knowledge.
“She knew everyone from heads of state to Al Capone,” Canepa said.
Galter told stories of swimming in Lake Michigan at the present-day site of Lake Shore Drive and watching gangsters-versus-politicians baseball games where all the players left their guns in a wheelbarrow at home plate. Her husband used to play at a Mafia-run nightclub that later became the site of the Galter Pavilion, Canepa said.
Galter had a magnetic personality and was always humble about her wealth, said Tina Rothstein, who worked with the Galter Foundation for 16 years.
“She was a very modest lady,” Rothstein said. “If you would see her on the street, you would never know she had millions.”
Galter’s wealth made her tough, but she was pleasant, fair and “had a good laugh,” Canepa said.
She loved swimming, horseback riding, reading, architecture, children, and collecting art and jewelry. Galter lived in a penthouse in downtown Chicago and was independent until her death, Canepa said.
Galter is survived by one daughter, Lois Joseph; four grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren. A funeral was held Friday in Chicago.

Jack Galter, 89, musician, promoter, philanthropist
by Kenan Heise
May 7, 1993 Original article in Chicago Tribune

Jack Galter, 89, a Chicago philanthropist, had careers over the years as a professional drummer, as a clock manufacturer and as president of the Galter Corp., a large real estate development and investment firm.
A resident of the Streeterville neighborhood, he died Wednesday, his birthday, in Northwestern Memorial Hospital.
Mr. Galter, emigrated with his family from Russia. They settled first in Chicago and later moved to Sutton, Neb.
From 1920 to 1933, Mr. Galter worked as a professional drummer, playing with a number of jazz greats, including Benny Goodman, Danny Alvin and David Rose.
In the heart of the Depression, he started several companies. One, the Spartus Corp., became one of the largest clock manufacturers in the country.
Among his real estate holdings over the year were two apartment buildings, the Carriage House and the Hampshire House, in the Streeterville area, which he sold to Northwestern Memorial Hospital.
In 1943, he and his wife established the Galter Foundation, which provides philanthropic support to health-care institutions, Jewish welfare funds and the handicapped.
He served as a director of the Hektoen Institute and the Children's Asthma Research Institute.
Survivors include his wife of 68 years, Sarah "Dollie"; a daughter, Lois Galter Joseph; four grandchildren; and five great-grandchildren.
Services for Mr. Galter will be held at 2 p.m. Friday in Piser Weinstein Menorah Chapel, 5206 N. Broadway.

Having a good sense of business, Jack Galter detected, at the end of the 1930s, the desire among young Americans to own a simple and, above all, inexpensive camera. Galter will therefore manufacture something to satisfy this desire.
He will register the design of his cameras,

Design for a camera Design 114 324 April 18, 1939

Design for a camera Design 114 323 April 18, 1939

and several patents relating to apparatus features. We easily recognize the main features of what will be commonly called Candid-Type camera.

Synchronized Flash Camera 2 196 604 April 9, 1940		Synchronized Flash Camera 2 198 975 April 30, 1930 (Galter isn't the inventor)
Shutter 2 206 532 July 2, 1940		Film winding 2 213 492 September 3, 1940
Blocking of the film winding knob 2 220 599 November 5, 1940

The cameras are of 127 format, in moulded material, most of the time black. There is no adjustment, the lens, whose name is Graf, is fix-focus. From a few different moulds and a great imagination to give them respectable names, Galter will produce thousands of inexpensive cameras, sold in drugstores and some of which will be contest gifts or advertising bonuses.
The main address of Sparta Corp. initially specializing in the manufacture of clocks and razors was 711-715 West Lake Street, but we see that pseudo-brands had their addresses almost in the same block of buildings. For example Walnut St. runs parallel to West Lake Str. separate from a block.


In the early 1940s, Galter absorbed Utility Mfg. Co of New York and made it one of its subsidiaries. The use of pseudo-brands evoking other real brands leads in 1941 justice to order Galter to stop such a process following complaints from Remington, Underwood and Elgin.
In 1951, Galter sold his company to his sales manager, Harold Rubin, who changed the name of the company to Herold Products Co. It will once again become Spartus Corp. several years later. At the end of the 1950s, Jack and Dollie Galter invest in real estate where they will make a fortune.

A very incomplete overview of the true and pseudo brands of the Galter saga.