Comet (3×4)
The Comet (コメット) is a Japanese camera taking 3×4cm exposures on 127 film. It was distributed by Ueda Shashinki-ten in 1940 and 1941.
Description of the body
The Comet has a rounded metal body. There is a telescopic tube supporting the lens and shutter assembly. The top plate is removed for film loading, in a style made popular by the Picny and Gelto. It supports the advance knob at the right end, a knob used to open and close the camera, the tubular finder in the middle, a plate engraved COMET, and the accessory shoe at the left end.
Original documents
An advertisement in Asahi Camera August 1940 lists the Comet for ¥55, with a front-cell focusing Lucomar Anastigmat f/4.5 lens and a Comet shutter (25, 50, 100, B, T).[1] The picture shows the name COMET inscribed at the top of the shutter plate.
Advertisements in the December 1940 and January 1941 issues of the same magazine show the same picture but do not specify the lens and shutter names.[2] The price is given as ¥65 in December 1940, and is not mentioned in January 1941. Further advertisements appear until April 1941.[3]
The camera also appears for ¥77 in the official list of set prices compiled in October 1940 and published in January 1941, with no further detail.[4]
Actual examples
One surviving example is pictured in Sugiyama.[5] It has a front-cell focusing 5cm f/4.5 lens reportedly called Helios Anastigmat, certainly made by Tōkyō Shashin Kōgaku, and an unmarked shutter giving T, B, 5–200 speeds.
Another example has a Seica Anastigmat lens, perhaps with f/3.5 maximal aperture, and a Kikō-B shutter, certainly made by Kigawa, perhaps giving T, B, 5–200 speeds.[6]
Similar Helios and Seica lenses were used on the Seica 3×4 camera, perhaps indicating a relation between the two cameras.
Notes
- ↑ Advertisement reproduced in Kokusan kamera no rekishi, p.76.
- ↑ Advertisements reproduced in Kokusan kamera no rekishi, pp.72 and 77.
- ↑ Kokusan kamera no rekishi, p.336.
- ↑ "Kokusan shashinki no kōtei kakaku", type 1, section 7.
- ↑ Example pictured in Sugiyama, item 3015.
- ↑ Example pictured in Onodera, p.16 of Camera Collectors' News no.127.
Bibliography
- Asahi Camera (アサヒカメラ) editorial staff. Shōwa 10–40nen kōkoku ni miru kokusan kamera no rekishi (昭和10–40年広告にみる国産カメラの歴史, Japanese camera history as seen in advertisements, 1935–1965). Tokyo: Asahi Shinbunsha, 1994. ISBN 4-02-330312-7. Item 108. (See also the advertisements for items 129 and 136.)
- "Kokusan shashinki no kōtei kakaku" (国産写真機の公定価格, Set prices of the Japanese cameras), listing Japanese camera production as of October 25, 1940 and setting the retail prices from December 10, 1940. Published in Asahi Camera January 1941 and reproduced in Shōwa 10—40nen kōkoku ni miru kokusan kamera no rekishi (昭和10〜40年広告にみる国産カメラの歴史, Japanese camera history as seen in advertisements, 1935—1965). Tokyo: Asahi Shinbunsha, 1994. ISBN 4-02-330312-7. Pp.108—9. Type 1, section 7.
- Onodera Eiri (小野寺英里). "SNK to Kigawa to Taisei to Fujikō to" (SNKと木川と大成と富士光と, SNK, Kigawa, Taisei, Fujikō, etc.). In Camera Collectors' News no.127 (January 1988). Nishinomiya: Camera Collectors News-sha. Pp.15–20.
- Sugiyama, Kōichi (杉山浩一); Naoi, Hiroaki (直井浩明); Bullock, John R. The Collector's Guide to Japanese Cameras. 国産カメラ図鑑 (Kokusan kamera zukan). Tokyo: Asahi Sonorama, 1985. ISBN 4-257-03187-5. Item 3015.