http://losangeles.craigslist.org/wst/atq/3296601736.html

Samson Camera housing on LA Craig's list
The Samson Camera housings, made by Herb Samson of Costa Mesa, California were the standard of the industry for many years,.He made two models, the Sportsman and the Professional. This is the Sportsman model which housed a 16 mm Bell & Howell 70 DR camera (3 minutes 25 seconds of film at 24 frames per second) and/or a 35 MM 100 foot reel Filmo camera. There were very few sold and even fewer have survived the passage of time.

They were very expensive ..I purchased my Sportsman model in 1958 for a few pennies less than a $1000.00..Used it for years, drug it all over SoCal and Mexico and never had a problem, made a number of forgetable movies.... I still have it -- it is resting at my feet next to my desk... just don't have the heart to sell it.

There were so few UW photographers who owned Samson's, I suspect I know who the original owner based on the location of the seller and the storage box - If I am correct this camera and the owner appeared on the cover of Skin Diver Magazine in about 1960-a historical item..

Herb's Professional model was a huge beast of a camera, housed a 35MM 400 foot reel Filmo camera and weighed in at 90 pounds and was primary used by USN and very serous professionals such as Bill Mac Donald.

Some will refer to this housing as the Samson- Hall. The camera housing in Craigs list is a Samson. At the very end of production Jon Hall purchased the rights to the Samson Housing, changed the name to Samson -Hall attempted to market it for a few years with little or no success.

Some will also recall the Samson "world record spear gun" which was designed and marketed by Herb for many years, sold to Ron Merker of the Aquatic Center, who in turn sold it to Harry Rescigno of Sea Tec where it died about 25 years ago. (FYI- Herb, Jon & Harry are diving in the big reef in the sky- Ron is still kicking).

SDM

• Too cool. We're too old thoough (-) seahunt 04:10:39 09/29/12 (0)