Talk:Koho

Postwar chaos

What with NKK, NKS, MSK, MKS, etc etc, surely you guessed that the Koho story wasn't this simple. If not, p. 64 of Lewis, ed., History of the Japanese Camera (discussing the situation in 1948) will put you right. I quote: "Mamiya also bought lenses from Olympus Optical, to whom they sold Koho shutters which, curiously, Olympus had made and sold to Mamiya before the war." -- Hoary 02:55, 11 June 2006 (EDT)

Very interesting. The plant making the Koho shutters was destroyed in 1945. Olympus continued to sell Olympus Six equipped with the Koho after the war, before using the Copal shutter, and the Koho name appears in ads as late as 1948. It is usually believed that these shutters were remaining stocks: Francesch mentions a stock of parts in a plant at Suwa that was used after the war. But the source you are mentioning would indicate that at least some Koho shutters were re-bought to Mamiya, a prewar customer. So after the war Olympus was trying to find a source of shutters by all means. The Olympus Six seen with weird shutters (unnamed to 1/250 and unnamed to 1/300) would probably be from the same date (even if Foster says 1940, I don't on which basis). --Rebollo fr 06:39, 11 June 2006 (EDT)