Update: Impossible in Europe has confirmed that they will be offering the Min Bar. It will be announced in a few weeks.

This is awesome. The mint bar looks like a great little device but seems a little over priced. The price is HK Dollars converts to something like £50. I understand you will be purchasing one to review Tom so I will wait until then before purchasing as I don't know what to expect. Can you update this thread once you do review the Mint Bar. Thanks!

Hi Joe -

I'm looking forward to receiving it. I'm told by the folks at Mint that I'm one of a handful of selected people to be shipped the Mint Bar outside of Hong Kong. I paid 800 HKD (about $103 USD) including shipping. Interestingly, just a week back, I bought an old-stock, new-in-the-box Polatronic #2350 electrconic flash that had never been used. The box was priced $99.95, so the amount that I paid is on par with what the Polatronic sold-for decades ago.

The box itself has a date of November, 1978, and adjusting 1978 US Dollars to 2011 US Dollars, $99.95 would be the equivalent of $345 USD today. And in terms of money saved by not buying flashbars, it won't take long to recover the cost of the Mint Bar.

Stay tuned for the review in a couple of weeks.

Nice to see you are one of the few to get your hands on one first! I am looking forward to your review. Do you have a website Tom?

After seeing your calculations I guess its true that the Mint bar is to be seen as an investment. Current eBay prices are around £8-10 per flash bar with 10 flashes on each and these wont be around forever. I'm sure IP have discussed a flash for the future but Mint have done it, lets hope its as good as it looks.

On the note of flashes I have seen a Polaroid 2350 Flash with Bracket for sale on eBay. Its around £15 delivered, do you have much experience with the older flashes? This seems like a decent deal I just dont know if they are that great. They seem bulky, the charge ready light is broken on this one (not that much of a problem) but for the price seems decent. Let me know what you think.

Thanks

Joe

Hi Joe -

I know with certainty the IP will be offering the Mint Bar, based on a reply from Impossible GmbH. Expect an announcement in the coming weeks. I don't know what the pricing will be, or if it will be branded with Impossible's logo.

I own two Polaroid Polatronic #2350 units, as well as an ITT MagicFlash, another from Nissin, and a flash adapter made by Georg Holderied that permits the use of any external flash unit. I believe that I paid $50 USD for my flash adapter, and it's excellent if you want to use studio lights, but you need to be able to adjust the output of the flash units. See http://www.chemie.unibas.ch/~holder/SX70.html and http://www.sx2pc.com for more details.

The main thing about the older flash units is that they are big and bulky, but they will still work. If they fail, though, there's no warranty on these older flash units, and finding someone to repair them could be expensive. I think that the Mint Bar will overcome these limitations, since the product will be warranted, and it's a very small device (not much bigger than a flashbar). That said, I'm a collector of Polaroids, so having the Polatronic means that I have factory-original equipment.

One benefit of the Polatronic 2350 over all of the other attachable flash units (including the Mint Bar) is that the flash head is offset significantly from the lens of the camera, which means no red-eyes in photos.

I'm getting very anxious to try out the Mint Bar.

Thanks for the information Tom.

I have actually exchanged emails with Georg Holderied as I was inquiring with him to see if he worked with Mint on their Flash Bar. He didn't and he wasn't even aware they were creating one. Georg has tried to create his own flash bar though check it out:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/polapix/2185476209/

Pretty damn good for a diy job. Georg is very knowledgeable about the SX-70's and the way their electronics work cool guy to talk with. I have looked at his flash adapters but I would not use my SX-70 in a studio so not really what I require, cool adapter none the less. 

He also described a Polaroid Patent that has expired which shows a very similar device to what Mint are offering:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/64318090@N07/6223258493/

You check the full patent out by the link on the page above. Very interesting to read and so cool to see original designs/documentation for polaroid. This now being expired I wonder if Mint have re-patented their release?

I would of loved to work for Polaroid.. they are just awesome!!

What interesting information, Joe. Thanks!

It's neat to see Georg's prototype, as well as the expired Polaroid patent for their own electronic flashbar. After looking at the Polaroid patent, someone posted a photo of a working prototype that Polaroid made (called the "Strobar"), but they never brought it to market. I don't know why they didn't, but because the flash drew its power from the battery in the film pack, and because electronics in the 70s and 80s drew more power, perhaps it drained the battery pack too quickly. Who knows?