Talk:Baby Pearl

Adrien I have in hand a Baby Pearl, semi-chrome model, with Rukuoh-Sha shutter, Rukuoh-Sha Optor 4.5 (serial 26445), and Rukuoh-Sha MADE IN JAPAN on the back...will shoot pics soon... seems this is a post war assembled model from spare parts? What does not make sense in that interpretation is that other cameras such as the Konica (i) made in 1948 etc are all "Made in Occupied Japan" (unless MiOJ came later). You may want to work on this and expound on this, maybe in a footnote... leather case just says "Baby Pearl" Dirk

You are right, the explanation currently presented in the article somehow does not make sense. When I wrote this, I thought the MADE IN JAPAN marking was unlikely in wartime Japan, but this is a fragile assumption. Were this marking introduced after 1945, it would not appear on leatherette pieces stamped ROKUOH–SHA, because that name was abandoned at the time. I will fix the corresponding sentences.

One thing we can reasonably assume is that Konishiroku markings appeared in 1943. Therefore cameras with Konishiroku markings were assembled after that date. Not many (or maybe none at all) were completed in the 1943–1945 period, and most were finished after the war. This includes many cameras with mixed markings, having "Konishiroku" on the lens rim and "Rokuoh-sha Made in Japan" on the back (and either "Rokuoh-sha" or "Konishiroku" on the shutter face). I think that the company had stocks of camera bodies, complete with leatherette covering, lacking the lens only or the lens and shutter unit. These were completed and sold in the troubled 1945–1947 period. The fully coherent combination of "Konishiroku" on the lens and shutter, and "Konishiroku Made in Occupied Japan" on the back, only appears on very late cameras, perhaps made in 1948–1949. (The situation is different for the Konica I, which was a new product and was produced with proper markings from the start.)

Yet more troubling, various sources say that the Baby Pearl was also available after the war with Optor lens, but I have not yet seen a single Baby Pearl with a "Konishiroku" Optor. (But Optor lenses do exist with Konishiroku marking: I have seen very few Semi Pearl having these.)

--rebollo_fr 07:35, 16 July 2010 (EDT)