User:Johnbear

I began as a general collector, then "specialised" in Taiyodo Koki (which changed its name to the Beauty Camera Company). I think I got sucked down the Rabbit hole of trying to gather information about this forgotten, obscure and even mysterious manufacturer that once supplied cameras to the British high street retailer Dixons ... so surely they couldn't have been that insignificant and inconspicuous?

All lines of research initially led to Camera Wiki, in so much that almost every Internet scribbling has unquestioningly copied Camera Wiki's wisdom. Repetition makes a fact seem more true, regardless of whether it is or not. However, as I began to unearth material and - more importantly - translate known documents, Japanese blogs, and apply some lateral thinking, it became apparent that much of the detail at Camera Wiki is wrong (Gulp!). It's very clear that the original author filled-in the information gaps with guesses!

• The original authoritative English language source of information on Taiyodo was Camerapedia. The page was created in May 2007 by user "Rebollo fr", who - unaware of the Meteor at that time - initially wrote that "Taiyodo originated in late 1949 as the maker of the subminiature Beauty 14".
• In January 2008, Rebollo fr spotted a Taiyodo advertisement placed in the October 1947 edition of Ars Camera magazine - which was offered for sale in an online auction - and changed the Camerapedia page to read Taiyodo "was already active in late 1947". We can surmise from this wording that what Taiyodo were advertising was unclear. Rebollo my friend, this is where things started to go wrong! You should have made an effort to translate the advert or at least noticed and questioned the difference between Camera Taiyodo and the later Taiyodo Koki (カメラ太陽堂 & 太陽堂光機㈱).
• In October 2008, Rebollo discovered adverts from Nihon Shashin Kōgyō Tsūshin April 1948, (reproduced in "Hyaku-gō goto jūkai no kiroku") and Kohga Gekkan May 1948 (reproduced in Camera Collectors' News no.239). In the absence of copies, we only know from Rebollo fr that these mentioned Gelto and Planet products, and (without the benefit of translation) Rebollo fr assumed Taiyodo was a distributer! What a shame he/she never explored the possibility the Taiyodo was a simple shop.
• In December 2008, presumably to explain what Taiyodo was doing in 1947 Rebollo added that Taiyodo was "already active as a camera distributor in late 1947". There are no notes as to why he/she reached this conclusion, but the consequence is that most English speakers who have written something about Taiyodo have accepted and copied Rebollo fr's words.
• In a further edit, the date was moved forward to 1946 some later time (presumably after spotting another advert?), but the assumption Taiyodo was a distributor remained unchanged.

In the spirit of respecting other's work, I have left the misconceptions largely intact and offered an alternative history.

The big inaccuracies are that

1. Taiyodo was never a distributer: it was shop (called Camera Taiyodo) selling used goods. Translation of the supporting Wiki-linked documents (and others) makes this clear, but moreover, the impact of WWII ensured that Japanese industry collapsed, the people were starving, and there was nothing to distribute! Let's not forget Japan was "Nuked" and millions died in the conflict. The irony is, without straying from the confines of Camera-Wiki, it is possible to access evidence about who was making what and how much of it in 1946, and it is crystal clear there was next to nothing being made, and therefore no role for a new distributer.
2. I'm still researching the allegation of Bankruptcy in 1957, but I think the evidence for this is paper thin (quite literally a single reference on one page of a book that was a rework of a translation of an earlier publication), and the rapid recovery of the company about to go under is unprecedented. I (and a few Japanese bloggers) think it is far more likely that Taiyodo Koki simply changed their name to match that of their product, as did Canon, Miranda, Nikon, Olympus, Topcon, etc, etc. If something walks like a duck, looks like a duck and goes quack, it's probably a duck.

I put together a website in 2021, and I am still - unbelievably - unearthing fragments of new information every now an then. I don't have a domain address (that's another story), which Google doesn't particularly like, but thankfully other search engines - like Bing - are not so fussy.

I have recently had a Wikipedia page on Camera Taiyodo accepted and published. Unlike editing Camera-Wiki, the standard for Wikipedia is far higher, and demands copious citation of evidence. I'm pleased with my accomplishment, and gratified to have created a document that tells the story without the need to counter pre-existing nonsense about the company being a distributer!

A few kind people have found my website https://heyjohnbear.wixsite.com/taiyodo and been able to offer snippets of information based on observations of their cameras. It would be brilliant if there were others who had some evidence-based knowledge, but I guess there aren't too many people interested in this forgotten shop/manufacturer?