Misuzu Shōkai

Misuzu Shōkai (i.e. Misuzu Trading Company) was a Japanese distributor that also made some cameras that it sold under its own name from 1936 to 1944, then again from 1947 to the early 1950s.

It was founded on June 1st, 1922 as simply Misuzu Shōkai (美篶商会) and became K.K. Misuzu Shōkai (株式会社美篶商会) on May 16th, 1936. On June 24th, 1965, it changed its name again to Misuzu Shōkai K.K. (美スズ商会株式会社, abandoning the kanji character, whose reading is hard to guess). The company was still in existence in 2004.

Cameras sold by Misuzu under its own name

• Vest Alex (4×6.5, 1936–1938), later sold by Riken as the Vest Olympic
• Midget (1937)
• Romax (1938)
• New Midget (1939, again in 1947)
• New Midget II f:4.5 (1940)
• Semi Lead (4.5×6 folder, 1943–4)

The website of the company said that the Midget was made by Misuzu itself.

Other cameras distributed by Misuzu

• the Alpenflex made by Hachiyo Optical
• the Semi Leotax made by Shōwa Kōgaku (prewar and wartime period)
• the Well Standard and Well Super made by Nihon Kōki
• the Olympus Standard made by Takachiho (Misuzu cited as authorized dealer)

Links

In Japanese:

• A web archive version (Sep 24, 2004) of the Misuzu Shōkai corporate site, which is currently (June 2006) offline. There is a company presentation, with a chronology (important source for this page) and the history of Misuzu's name, and a page presenting a Midget camera. (If the text is garbled rather than Japanese, switch the encoding to Shift-JIS.)