Nihon Shōkai
Revision as of 21:38, 27 May 2006 by Rebollo fr (talk | contribs) (nihon shokai maybe became walz after the war)
The name Nihon Shōkai (日本商会) appeared in some ads related to the Walz company. It seems that it was the distributor at least of the original Walz camera (see this ad) and of some wartime variant of the Waltax (see this ad and this ad). Maybe it was even the maker of the wartime Waltax, a hint of this being that there are two company names in the Waltax ads, the other being the distributor Honjō Shōkai, explicitly mentioned as a wholesaler (本庄商会卸部). The latter company still exists as Honjō K.K. (本庄株式会社), a photo wholesaler (see the company history here).
This Japanese page at La Chambre Claire suggests that Nihon Shōkai was the owner of the Walz brand name before the war, and became Walz Shōkai after the war.
