The Spy Camera: The Minox Story

This is an odd little book. It’s the history of a tiny camera – the Minox – that appears in a lot of spy movies. This is the little camera that someone would use to photograph documents – they trigger the shutter by squeezing it from both sides.

I don’t know why someone would write this, other than a pure love for the device. It’s quite comprehensive. Turns out it was invented by a guy in Latvia in the 1930s, and was manufactured at least through the 1990s.

The company never had any comment on its product being used for espionage. They marketed the device as a “subminature” camera, and spent a lot of research making it as small as possible. The smallest model was about the size of a cigarette lighter. And remember, this was film camera. It had a moving shutter, and a film cartridge.

I went out on eBay and found that you can buy them as collectors’ items for about $200, though I think the film must be hard to find because most of them say “untested.”

I will admit to skimming quite a bit of this book. In some ways, it’s almost a photo album – there are pages and pages of schematics and design diagrams and advertisements, etc. A lot of the technical details went way over my head The book is a really comprehensive history of a quirky device that most people have never heard of, to the point where it includes a detail listing and description of every model and variant of the Minox ever produced.

I’m glad someone wrote it, but I’m not quite sure what the demand was for it.

Book Data

Author

Morris Moses

Year

1990

Pages

196

Acquired

Not recorded

Open Library

OL3791655W

• I have read this book. According to my records, I completed it on August 30, 2026.
• A hardcover copy of this book is currently in my home library.