Prince

Prince Camera Works was a Japanese camera maker at some time, but its history is unclear. Its existence is confirmed by an accessory rangefinder marked Prince Camera Works observed at a Yahoo Japan auction, and by a P.C.W. logo appearing on a 1937 ad for the Semi Prince camera. However it is difficult to know exactly which cameras it made.

The name Prince appears on various Japanese cameras:

• cameras attributed to Fujimoto by McKeown:
  • Semi Prince 4.5×6 folder (1934 onwards), distributed by Fukada Shōkai, according to Fujimoto's current web page, it was made by Fujimoto who also sold it under its own brand as the Semi Lucky
  • Prince Peerless 6.5×9 folding plate camera, maker unknown
  • Prince Flex 6×6 TLR, certainly made by Neumann & Heilemann and distributed by Fukada Shōkai
  • Prince 6.5×9 folding plate camera (only in McKeown)
  • Pocket Prince 4×6.5 folder (only in McKeown)
• cameras attributed to Prince Camera Works:
  • Baby Doris, 3×4 folding (McKeown again lists Doris cameras in the 1950s under the entry "Tokyo Seiki")
  • Prince Baby Ref, fixed focus pseudo TLR, perhaps the same camera as the Riken Chukon Ref
• cameras attributed to 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 the distributor 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) made some cameras named Doris (name cited again in McKeown under the Tokyo Seiki entry for 1950s cameras), and some of the Semi Prince
• after the war this company became Tōyō Seiki Kōgaku (東洋精機光学) and 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

Links

• Discussion about Prince on this page at tlr-cameras.com