The Spartus Vanguard was made of plastic with a metal face plate, shutter and flash contacts. It uses 127 film and was made by Herold Products of Chicago. The camera has accommodations for a plug-in flash unit and along with the optical viewfinder that separates it from the common box camera. The shutter has one speed of 1/50 of a second and is without double exposure protection. The camera was introduced in 1962 and is the flash version of the Spatus Rocket and looks identical save the different face plate, the two holes for the flash and a "COLOR - B&W" aperture selector. A soft plastic handle was provided and attached to a square hard point buttons on each side of the camera with the button holes at the ends of the handle.
The Utility Manufacturing Company was founded in New York in 1934, offering several camera lines including folding cameras and box cameras. Falcon was the main brand, of mostly molded Bakelite cameras in an eye-level style, which quickly became popular. In 1941 Utility was bought by Spartus Corporation, and moved to Chicago. It made cameras of its own brand Spartus and under contract for other companies. In 1951 its head of sales, Herold Rubin, bought the company and named it Herold Mfg. Co. The cameras had a distinctive styling, but the same camera would end up with various badges. The branding was mainly Falcon, Utility, Spartus, and Herold.