Back in 1985, TIME magazine was determined to get more subscribers. We know this because of the special TV offer you see above. If you happen to be around when this commercial aired, all you needed to do was call the number to get a TIME magazine subscription for 40% off, and a free 35mm camera!

If it sounds too good to be true, that’s because it was. The TIME camera was more of a toy camera than anything else, but for a toy camera it was actually fairly high-end. It had a hot shoe that worked, a 50mm lens that took reasonably sharp photos, and a manual aperture ring that gave you the option to choose between f/6, 8, 11, or 16.

Even better, if you had no idea what aperture was, you could ignore the f-stop numbers and choose instead from illustrations that included cloudy, partly cloudy, sunny and very sunny. And just in case the plastic feel of the camera made it seem like too much of a toy, they slapped a piece of lead to the bottom to give it some weight.

This is the actual Item shown in photo that you will receive