Cherry

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Japanese plate box cameras (edit)
No.0 (4×5cm) Adam | Hayatori Renshūyō
atom (4.5×6cm) Atom Hayatori Shashinki
meishi (5.5×8cm) Cherry
tefuda (8×10.5cm) Champion | Cherry | Sakura Army | Sakura Honor | Sakura Navy
nimaigake (8×12cm) Sakura Honor
kabine (12×16.5cm) Sakura Honor
Japanese plate film: monocular, folding bed, strut-folding and SLR ->
3×4 and 4×4, 4×5 and 4×6.5, 4.5×6, 6×6 and 6×9 ->
This is a work in progress.

The Cherry Hand Camera (チャンピオン手提暗函)[1] is a magazine camera, released by Konishi Honten (predecessor of Konica) in September 1903.[2] It was assembled in the Kubo factory, a subcontractor for Konishi.[3]

Cherry No.1

The Cherry No.1 was patterned after the Little Nipper by Butcher, itself copied on the Gnom by Hüttig. It was kept simple so that even children could be taught how to use it. Of course simplicity helped to keep its price as low as ¥2 (a little cheaper than the original Little Nipper, sold in Japan for ¥3).

The box-shaped camera takes six meishi-size dry plates (about 5.5×8cm). It has its reflecting type viewfinder mounted (or just clipped) on top, a finder of a kind that sometimes was called "Watson finder". Other than popular American box cameras of that time it has its lens in a barrel that's mounted on the front plate. The lens barrel contains the camera's special kind of rotary shutter that needs cocking for instant mode (see well illustrated Japanese link). The shutter is placed in front of the Goerz Choroskop 1:13.5 or a similar lens. With dimensions of only 12.5×12.1×7.2cm it is a quite small magazine camera. Another version looks more like common box cameras, having two inbuilt reflecting type finders and the lens hidden behind a round aperture selector slice (like Conley's Kewpie box cameras). Both types keep its special plate holders in place being hooked on the T-profile where they stand on. The Cherries have a very simple falling plate mechanism to let used plates fall onto a stack.

Two European miniature falling plate magazine cameras of 1900, W. Butcher's Little Nipper and R. Hüttig's Gnom were the model after which the Cherry Portable was created. It was badged with the English name "Cherry" in latin letters. Thus it was perhaps the first industrially manufactured Japanese camera which should be exported to other countries or their colonies.

Cherry No.2

Cherry No.3

Notes

  1. The phrase tesage anbako (手提暗函) is rendered as "Hand Camera" in the Konishi catalogue dated December 1911. In modern sources, it is often translated as "Portable Camera" and the camera is sometimes called "Cherry Portable". The Japanese word anbako literally means "dark box"; it was modeled after "camera obscura" and was used for cameras until around the 1910s.
  2. Date: Lewis, p.17, chronology from the official company history Shashin to tomo ni hyaku-nen reproduced in Tanaka, p.94 of Kurashikku Kamera Senka no.10, quote from the same book in this page at R.Konishi Rokuoh-sha, and this page of the Center of the History of Japanese Industrial Technology.
  3. Lewis, p.17, this page at R.Konishi Rokuoh-sha.

Bibliography

Links

In English:

In Japanese:


Konishiroku prewar and wartime cameras (edit)
plate hand cameras stereo hand cameras strut folders box telephoto SLR
Idea (original) | Idea A | Idea B | Idea Snap | Idea No.1 | Idea (metal) | Lily (original) | Lily (horizontal) | Lily (metal) | Tropical Lily | Noble | Ohca | Sakura Palace | Sakura Pocket Prano | Sakura Prano Idea Binocular | Sakura Binocular Prano Minimum Idea | Idea Spring | Korok Champion | Cherry | Sakura Army | Sakura Honor | Sakura Navy Idea Telephoto Idea Reflex (1910 and 1911) | Idea Reflex (1932) | Neat Reflex | Sakura Reflex Prano
rollfilm folders box or collapsible TLR
Pearlette | Special Pearlette | B Pearlette | Pearl (for plates and rollfilm) | Pearl No.2 | Pearl (Year 8) | Baby Pearl | Semi Pearl | Sakura Palace Record | Sakura (box) | Sakura (bakelite) Sakura-flex