Hokoku
The Hokoku (ホウコク) is a Japanese 4.5×6 folder made by Kuribayashi at the beginning of the 1940s, and about which very few is known. At the time, Kuribayashi was already making 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 Template:Kakaku1940 short, compiled on October 25, 1940 and published in January 1941, listed 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. In this document, the name is written in katakana ホウコク. The Hokoku I has a Hokoku f/4.5 three-element lens made by Ogasawara (like the Mizuho lens of the Mizuho) and a Hokoku shutter made by Kuribayashi itself, giving 25–200, T, B speeds.[2] The Hokoku II has the same lens and a Rotte shutter (1–200, T, B).[3] In both cases, the shutter size is #00.[4]
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"), item 69, lens item Lc16, shutter item 18-P-21.
- ↑ "Kokusan shashinki no genjōchōsa" ("Inquiry into Japanese cameras"), item 70, lens item Lc16, shutter item 18-P-5.
- ↑ This shutter size is called "type 18" in the "Kokusan shashinki no genjōchōsa" ("Inquiry into Japanese cameras"), shutter items 18-P-5 and 18-P-21.
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. Item 69–70.
- Template:Kakaku1940
This camera is not listed in Sugiyama nor in Kokusan kamera no rekishi.