Hokoku
The Hokoku (ホウコク) is a Japanese 4.5×6 folder made by Kuribayashi at the beginning of the 1940s, about which very few is known. At the time, Kuribayashi was already making at least three distinct lines of 4.5×6 folders: the Semi First, the Baby Semi First and the Semi Rotte, each with a different body. It is not known if the Hokoku was related to one of these of if it was yet another model. (The same question arises about the Mizuho.)
Documents
The list of set prices compiled on October 25, 1940 and published in January 1941, mentions a "Hōkoku I" (報国Ⅰ) for ¥62 and a "Hōkoku II" (報国Ⅱ) for ¥88, with no further detail.[1] The word hōkoku, when written 報国, means "devotion to the country".
The "Kokusan shashinki no genjōchōsa" ("Inquiry into Japanese cameras"), listing Japanese camera production as of April 1943, mentioned the Hokoku I and Hokoku II as made and distributed by Kuribayashi.[2] In this document, the name is written in katakana ホウコク. Both models have a Hokoku 75/4.5 three-element lens made by Ogasawara (like the Mizuho lens of the Mizuho).[3] The Hokoku I has a Hokoku shutter (25–200, T, B) and the Hokoku II has a Rotte shutter (1–200, T, B), both in #00 size and made by Kuribayashi itself.[4] The Rotte shutter is certainly the same as observed on examples of the BB Baby Semi First and BB Semi Rotte.
No surviving example of the Hokoku has been observed so far.
Notes
- ↑ Template:Kakaku1940 short, type 3, sections 3A and 6A.
- ↑ "Kokusan shashinki no genjōchōsa" ("Inquiry into Japanese cameras"), items 69–70.
- ↑ "Kokusan shashinki no genjōchōsa" ("Inquiry into Japanese cameras"), lens item Lc16.
- ↑ "Kokusan shashinki no genjōchōsa" ("Inquiry into Japanese cameras"), shutter items 18-P-5 and 18-P-21. The shutter size (#00) is called "type 18" (18型) in the document.
Bibliography
- "Kokusan shashinki no genjōchōsa" (国産写真機ノ現状調査, Inquiry into Japanese cameras), listing Japanese camera production as of April 1943. Reproduced in Supuringu kamera de ikou: Zen 69 kishu no shōkai to tsukaikata (スプリングカメラでいこう: 全69機種の紹介と使い方, Let's try spring cameras: Presentation and use of 69 machines). Tokyo: Shashinkogyo Syuppan-sha, 2004. ISBN 4-87956-072-3. Pp.180–7. Items 69–70.
- Template:Kakaku1940 Type 3, sections 3A and 6A.
This camera is not listed in Sugiyama nor in Kokusan kamera no rekishi.