burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

Oh, yeah. They sold a lot of cheap photo junk, some of which was "good enough" to make do until I could afford something better.

In the late 1960s, I had one of their dual sided print dryers with ferrotype plates, for fiber based glossy paper drying before the days of resin-coated papers.

I also had one of their stabilization processors. It used Activator and Stabilizer fluids in a roller transport device. The paper incorporated the developing agent. You could make a damp-dry, slightly stinky print in seconds. It would last at least a few weeks. But if you liked it, you could fix and wash it later, to make it permanent.

Spiratone stabilization paper and chemicals were horrible, but Kodak Ektamatic paper and chemistry worked perfectly in that processor. I used it for about 20 years, making hundreds of prints for various purposes where I didn't need archival quality. I took it to work, where we used it for corporate communications newsletter prints. It was the best thing we had for rapid access to reproduction prints before digital imaging came along!

Alas, I bought a 3X teleconverter for Nikon from them. It was unusable as anything other than a special effect! Optical quality was about as good as the bottom of a soft drink bottle...

E.L.. Shapiro Loc: Ottawa, Ontario Canada

They were in the Photo-RETAIL district in Manhattan, not far from Willoughby's, Olden Camera, Penn Camera, Camera-Barn and Minifilm Camera Shop. Crosstown on the subway was Peerless Camera. The boss at Sparatone was Fred Spira.

I bought stuff there as a teenager. Their house brand for filters and close-up attachments was "Accura"- not too terrible. They had a cool Parallex correcting diopter set for my Yashica-Mat so I could shoot "macro" with my cheap TLR

The Queenborough store, when I dealt with them, was on Norther Blvd. at Main Street in Flushing.

Camera-Barn had lots of cool government-surplus photo gear.

Whenever I decided to skip school, instead of the local pool-hall, I would hit the shops. Sometimes I would go uptown the Bronx. Freestyle Sales Co. had good deals on imported enlarging paper.

srt101fan

Might have been "cheap photo junk" but it matched my photographic talent! 😁

BebuLamar

Although I never bought from them but some of their products I saw are OK. Their spotmeters quite good. I didn't buy from them because I hate mail order and back then there were plenty of local stores.

MichaelMcGrath Loc: Ireland

Ken Rockwell praises a great 17mm Spiratone lens he had as a youth.

Mr Bill 2011 Loc: southern Indiana

still have my old Spiratone Slide Duplicator and the box it came in!

radiomantom Loc: Plymouth Indiana

Remember them very well, bought a number of items from them and I too loved scrolling through there pages of ads in Popular Photography magazines.

E.L.. Shapiro Loc: Ottawa, Ontario Canada

Here's an ad.

wrangler5 Loc: Missouri

That's the one Spiratone lens I had for my Nikon F. Preset aperture, so no complex linkages from camera to aperture, just an adapter that had the right bayonet configuration and flange-film length for the lens. I remember it taking pretty good images in bright light, at least for the 8x10 B&W images which were all I produced.

srt101fan

I bought that one along with a "gunstock" with a long cable release. Terrible lens, but then again, check the price.....

(Sorry, wrangler, I guess we had different experiences with that lens!)

BBurns Loc: South Bay, California

I still have a Spiratone eypiece that mounts on the back of any long lens and turns it into a telescope.

aellman Loc: Boston MA

I bought a bunch of accessories from Spiratone, a few of which I still use..

flip1948 Loc: Hamden, CT

I too had both the print dryer and stabilization processor. Despite it's limitations the stabilization processor saved me a ton of time in the darkroom.

E.L.. Shapiro Loc: Ottawa, Ontario Canada

The gunstock equipped lens was a Russian product. as I recall, it was called a "sniper"- it came in a case like a deadly firearm. Not the kinda thing you would bring to a political event or anyplace where there are security concerns. The kit came with a rater clunky Russian camera. Like- don't drop that rig on your foot!

What I found with some of the less expensive lenses is that they were OK as long as you worked around the aberrations and defects. Some performed decently at one or two aperture settings below max and then turned into mush. Some vignetted so the center of the format was usabel. Many folks were disappointed with long lenses because they handheld them at slower shutter speeds. In some the glass was decent but the mechanics were terrible

Nowadays you don't see too much off-brand cheap glass and for 50 bucks it's hard to find a good filter.

srt101fan

You're right, you wouldn't want to walk around with that lens today!

I also bought one of their flash units, Spiralite Sr, if I remember correctly. Seemed like a pretty decent flash