when is a Bolsey not a Bolsey?

Bosley Jubilee ad in late 1955 LIFE magazine

Toronto. When it is an Alpa or Bolex, of course! Jaques Bogopolsky was the camera designer for Paillard, a Swiss company  after they bought out his company, BOL SA.

Jaques was born in the Ukraine and went by various names including Bolsky and Bosley. Being Jewish and fearing the Nazi regime, Jacques emigrated to the USA in 1939 and began designing cameras for the American military forces.

After the war, he designed a series of consumer cameras under the Bosley name. His American cameras were made by another New York firm, Obex Corporation of Long Island. After the end of May, 1956, Obex also briefly became the distributors for Bosley cameras.

The above Jubilee model is from a LIFE magazine ad (p 64) in the November 28, 1955 issue. It came with a Steinheil lens, from the old optical house in Munich (Munchen), Germany. The marketeers for Bosley emphasized the Set-O-Matic feature for setting exposure and coupling to the aperture, implying that exposure was the challenge to making great photographs…

