Difference between revisions of "Prince"

Revision as of 16:36, 26 April 2006

The name Prince appears on various Japanese cameras:

cameras attributed to Fujimoto by McKeown:
- Semi Prince, 4.5x6 folding (1934 onwards), mentioned by Fujimoto on their web page, distributed by Fukada Shōokai, also sold by Fujimoto under their own brand as the Semi Lucky
- Prince Peerless, maker dubious
- Prince Flex, probably made by Neumann & Heilemann, also distributed by Fukada Shōkai
- Prince, 6.5x9 folding plate camera (only in McKeown)
- Pocket Prince, 4x6.5 folding (only in McKeown)
cameras by a company called Prince Camera Works:
- Baby Doris, 3x4 folding
- Prince Baby Ref, fixed focus pseudo TLR, perhaps the same camera as the Riken Chukon Ref
cameras by a company called Prince Camera Company:
- Princeflex, model I and II
- Prince Junior

Here is a possible theory:

around the mid 1930s the Prince name was used by a distributor named Fukada Shōkai, who sold cameras made by various other companies, such as Neumann & Heilemann for the Prince Flex or Fujimoto for the Semi Prince
at the end of the 1930s a company named Prince Camera Works (related or not to Fukada) probably existed and probably made some cameras named Doris (name cited again in McKeown under the Tokyo Seiki entry for 1950s cameras), and maybe some of the Semi Prince
(McKeown again lists Doris cameras in the 1950s under the entry "Tokyo Seiki")
after the war a company named Tōyō Seiki Kōgaku (東洋精機光学) reused the names Prince and Doris; among them the Princeflex was sometimes attributed to a Prince Camera (プリンスカメラ) company and the Dorisflex to a Doris Camera (ドリスカメラ) company

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 * Discussion about Prince on [http://www.tlr-cameras.com/Japanese/index.html this page at tlr-cameras.com]
-{{disambig}}
+[[Category: Camera makers]]
 [[Category: Japan]]