Mascot

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The Mascot is a Japanese subminiature taking 14×14mm pictures on 17.5mm paper backed rollfilm, made around 1950 by Shimura.

Description

The Mascot has a vertical shape, somewhat similar to a lighter. There is a tubular finder sunken at the top. The film is advanced by a knob on the photographer's right. The shutter is tripped by a button at the top, on the right of the viewfinder. It is said that the mechanism provides double exposure prevention.[1]

The lens is a fixed-focus Mascot Anastigmat 25mm f/4.5. The speed is selected by a pivoting index on the front plate, above the lens, with 100, 50, 25, B positions. The aperture is selected by a symmetrical index placed below the lens, with 8 and 4.5 positions.[2]

Commercial life

The Mascot was announced in Japanese magazines dated January 1950, and was still featured in the January 1951 issue of Photo Art on the national camera production.[3] The sources disagree on the maker's name, saying either "Shimura Kōgaku", "Shimura Koki" or "Shimura Seiki Co."[4] It is said that the camera was developed on behalf of Tōkyō Kōgaku, of which Shimura was perhaps an offshoot or a subcontractor.[5] It was certainly not made in large quantities, and the only surviving example known so far, belonging to the Pentax Gallery, is pictured in Sugiyama and in Kokusan kamera no rekishi.[6]

Notes

  1. Double exposure prevention: Kokusan kamera no rekishi, p.365.
  2. Kokusan kamera no rekishi, p.365, mentions f/4.5, f/8 and f/11, but the latter does not appear on the pictured camera.
  3. Kokusan kamera no rekishi, p.365.
  4. "Shimura Kōgaku": Kokusan kamera no rekishi, p.365 (surely the most reliable). "Shimura Koki": McKeown, p.890. "Shimura Seiki Co.": Sugiyama, item 5062.
  5. Kokusan kamera no rekishi, p.432: "Tōkyō Kōgaku had it made by the separate company Shimura Kōgaku" (東京光学は志村光学という別会社でやっていた).
  6. Sugiyama, item 5062; Kokusan kamera no rekishi, pp.365 and 432.

Bibliography

Links

In English: