Artifacts Collection

Surveillance Artifacts

Miniature camera (Tessina)

This small, high-quality, Swiss-made camera (6.5cm X 5cm X 2.5cm) was usually concealed in a cigarette pack, thus allowing for surreptitious photography virtually anywhere. Smoking in that era was so commonplace, that it did not attract any undue attention. The camera was fitted into a flip-top cigarette pack with dummy cigarettes visible at the top. A side space allowed room for two real cigarettes. A colour-matched screen covering the hole cut out for the lens made it virtually impossible to detect. To photograph the target, all the operator had to do was open the pack, remove a real cigarette while pointing the lens in the right direction and depress the shutter release by gently squeezing the side of the pack. Given its small size, the camera could also be concealed in other places, limited only by the imagination.

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