Crown shutter

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The Crown shutters were made by Molta, later Chiyoda (the predecessors of Minolta).

The Crown E

Left: Crown E to 1/100, early shutter plate.
Right: Crown E to 1/200, late shutter plate.
Pictures courtesy of eBayer hbpartner. (Image rights)

The Crown E is an everset shutter, with the release lever on the top left. It exists in two variants, giving first T, B, 5–100 speeds and later T, B, 5–200.

It is equipped with a small disc acting as an exposure counter. This disc advances each time the release is tripped and it can be manually reset. It is graduated from 1 to 8 with an intermediate stop between two consecutive numbers so that each number is used twice, as it appears in the red windows. The disc makes two full turns during the 16 exposures and each numbered position is shared by two numbers: 5/1, 6/2, 7/3 and 8/4. The patent for this device was filed on April 16, 1934 and published on October 13 of the same year.

The Crown E only equips the original Semi Minolta. On all the examples except the very late ones, the shutter plate is black, engraved Patents-Nippon at the top, CROWN at the bottom with an MTS logo on the right. The late shutter plate is black with three decorative metal lines on each side, engraved PATENT NIPPON at the top and CROWN at the bottom in block letters, with no MTS logo.

Other versions

List of cameras equipped (not exhaustive, and not implying that all the versions have a Crown shutter):

• Semi Minolta II
• Auto Semi Minolta
• Minolta Six
• Eaton (Crown A: T, B, 1–200)

Bibliography

• Tanimura Yoshihiko (谷村吉彦). "Supuringu kamera <semi minoruta>" (スプリングカメラ<セミミノルタ>, "Semi Minolta" self-erecting camera). Kamera Rebyū Bessatsu: Kurashikku Kamera Senka / All about Historical Cameras, no. 12 (special issue on Minolta camera no subete [ミノルタカメラのすべて, Minolta history]), pp. 19–24.