Bikōdō

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Bikōdō (美光堂) was a Japanese manufacturer of cameras and leaf shutters, from the late 1930s to the early 1950s.

Prewar and wartime period

As early as 1937, Bikōdō was mentioned as the distributor or maker of the Reex 6×9 folder.[1] During the war, Bikōdō made some shutters called Compur, copies of the corresponding German models.[2] These shutters have a round MB logo on the front plate; a similar logo also appears on the Light shutter or its Rosen name variant, perhaps indicating that these were made by Bikōdō too. The company's address in 1943 was Shitaya-ku Sakamoto 1–3–2 (下谷区坂本1–3–2) in Tokyo.[3]

List of Bikōdō shutters:

Postwar period

It is said that the company suffered some damage from the aerial bombings at the end of World War II.[4] It perhaps took some time to restructure, and nothing is known of its activities during the second half of the 1940s.

In the early 1950s, the company was called Bikōdō Seisakusho (美光堂製作所). It made the Superflex TLR and announced the Tenar Six folder. Its address from 1951 to 1953 was Taitō-ku Kami-negishi 60 (台東区上根岸60) in Tokyo.[5]

Camera list:

Notes

  1. Kokusan kamera no rekishi, p.343 (item 320).
  2. "Kokusan shashinki no genjōchōsa" ("Inquiry into Japanese cameras"), shutter items 18-Q-4 and 18-R-9.
  3. "Kokusan shashinki no genjōchōsa" ("Inquiry into Japanese cameras").
  4. Lewis, p.59.
  5. Advertisements reproduced in Kokusan kamera no rekishi, pp.141–2 and 149.

Bibliography