Inoca Six Stereo Camera

This week's camera is the Inoca Six Stereo Camera. I'm perplexed by it and wanted to see if others have it or have any information besides the very sparse information I can find online. I'm particularly interested in learning more about its history and the context of its production. If you have any insights, I'd love to hear from you.  

My Inoca Six Stereo Camera

 Four to five years ago, I stumbled upon a unique find on an online app I frequent for camera and photo items. The Inoca Six Stereo Camera, a seemingly familiar yet rare gem, caught my eye. The seller's claim of its extreme rarity, with only three known to exist, further fueled my interest.

 At that time, I did the average online search and couldn't find much on the camera or its manufacturer, Morita Trading Co., so I decided to take a chance on it. The camera wasn't cheap, but it wasn't overly expensive, so I couldn't take a chance on it, especially if it was so rare. There were only three cameras left.

The Company:

Morita Shōkai, or from what I can find online, was Morita Trading Company, a camera manufacturer and distributor in Japan during the 1950s. Their most prominent and most well-known cameras were subminiature cameras that had a resemblance to the Leica rangefinder cameras. I've seen many, like the Gem 16, Kiku 16, and Saica, which took 10-14x14mm images on miniature 17.5m film. They also made Bolta Film cameras like the Kikuflex camera in 1957 and the Inoca Stereo camera in 1956.

 There is a Japanese book, Japanese Camera History, as seen in advertisements, 1935–1965. The book was written by the publishers of Asahi Camera, which was a Japanese Camera magazine from 1926 until June 2020, where some of the Morita cameras are advertised.

My assumption was that the camera/distributor was very short-lived with the subminiature market's rapid rise and quick fall. In that specific timeframe, from 1955 to 1957, when these cameras were made, Morita tried to expand into Bolta film cameras like the Kikuflex, which is more common than the Inoca Stereo camera I have.

My Camera:

According to the case, I own an Inoca Six Stereo Camera. The camera is a straightforward bakelite stereo camera. All I see online is the Inoca Stereo camera. None of the cameras I see online have or show the fitted leather case; honestly, I have only seen three examples of this camera. One is on Camera-Wiki, and this is the camera I own. The eBay seller isn’t available on eBay so that I couldn’t contact them for more information. The second example I've seen is a camera sold at auction by Auction-team.de, and Leitz Photographica Auction sold the third example of the camera. The camera sold for quite a bit on the Leitz site many years ago.

My camera measures 4.5" wide by 3" tall by 2.25" deep and weighs 7.6 oz without the case, but the roll of film was in the camera. My camera has two chrome lens caps attached to the lenses. Looking on top of the camera, the winding knob is on the far left, and on my camera, the winding knob has three rings around the top of the knob. Looking at the camera from the Auction Team website, the winding knob is flat and looks to have leatherette or paint on top. Right next to the winding knob is where "Morita" should be printed, but someone took a hot implement and erased "Morita," but below where it's erased, & Company can be seen. On the other side is "patent" written.

On either side of the "Inoca" script, on top of the viewfinder, are two small sockets, which I'm guessing were for a flash, but that's just my guess. The shutter release is next to one of the small sockets, and the film holder is on the far right side of the camera. On the film holder is a knurled ring with an indent in the center with black paint.

 Upon inspecting the back of the camera, I discovered a film counting window with a side cover and a green window to view the frame numbers. To my surprise, a roll of film was still in the camera, held closed by white replacement tape. With 'MINORI' printed on the ends, the film spool added to the intrigue.

On the front of the camera is the word "STEREO" italicized and just under the front viewfinder glass. To the right of the word "stereo" is the shutter cocking lever. When the camera has already shot, and the shutter is not cocked, you see a red arrow pointing towards the left, and the cocking knob is to the far right position. Sliding the knob to the left, you've cocked the shutter(s) for both lenses, and the word "set" written in red is visible. Pressing the shutter release resets the knob to the right side position, and the arrow is visible again. On the outside of either lens is a screw which I've seen a chain with a lens cap attached to it, but unsure if that's really what they are for. My guess is to remove the front with the lenses, shutter, and aperture.

 Below the left lens is where you set the shutter speeds. The camera can only shoot at 1/25, 1/50, and 1/100 sec, along with "B" for exposure times. Below the right lens are the aperture settings with your choice of F8 or F11. Both the shutter speeds and aperture setting are controlled by a simple knob similar to the knob used to cock the shutter. 

Lastly, the bottom of the camera is printed "Made in Japan," along with a tripod mount for timed exposures if needed. There is no cable release capability if you want to do a time exposure. Another interesting item on the camera is a triangle pointing upwards between the two lenses with the letters M.W.T, and along the bottom line is a curved line, which generally represents a lens symbol. I'm wondering what M.W.T means, Morita, something?

 My camera also has a leather-fitted case, which is pretty tattered but still comes with the camera. You can see Inoca Six embossed on the front, so that's my guess at the official name, but I've only seen the Inoca Stereo camera.

Conclusion:

I realize this is a short post, but I could have developed the film found in the camera. Unfortunately, I didn't have a film ready to fit the size of the film, so I left it until I got something I could do. The camera is fundamental, and I like its design. It reminds me of the Start 35 K-II camera, another Bolta film camera made in Japan during the same timeframe.

 Thank you for taking the time to look over this post. If you have more information on this camera, please let me know. Otherwise, I think I have one of three cameras I know of and have seen online.

 Until next week, please be safe and well.

Dan 35 I Camera

My Dan 35 Model I camera

I need to start this post back in time. I first started collecting cameras and other photo items in the late 1970s or early 1980s. I can remember purchasing one of McKeown's Camera Price Guides and spending hours combing through each camera manufacturer, looking at the cameras they had made in the past. There were so many odd and unusual like very rare original Leica; the very first bullet-shaped brass Voigtlander camera, the Compass camera or Photosphere that I could only dream of owning, and many were so far from the price budget that I knew there were only a pipedream.

 Many large companies, like Eastman Kodak, Polaroid, and Zeiss, made hundreds of different model cameras, which were abundant. Then, there were the smaller camera companies that produced unique cameras, like Univex, which was the first camera I owned. It was a Uniflex that was given to me by my uncle Bud, who, to this day, along with my brother Tim, I owe my love of photography.

 Then, I can remember thumbing through the price guide and finding a tiny company that produced a camera near and dear to me, the Dan camera. I immediately thought I needed to find one of these to put into my collection. My initial search was hopeless, as many of the local flea markets and antique stores I'd frequent only had the very common Kodak, Polaroid, Zeiss, and other companies like Herbert George and other American brands.

Online Auctions:

It would help to remember that this was before eBay, which didn't exist before the mid-1990s. I was an early adopter of buying and selling on eBay in 1997. At that time, there were no photos, and it was mainly just a buy/sell board with an auction element so you could post a camera or item for sale, but you only had the description from the seller to go by. When I first joined eBay, there was no name to have but a number. My original number was 1034; you had to do everything through DOS.

 EBay made a massive difference as it gained popularity. It changed how people bought and sold items. Adding photos gave the buyer more confidence in their purchase, and rarer items could hit higher pricing due to the inability to find them.

 For many years, the Dan Camera was very elusive, and since the camera was from a smaller company, the scarcity and pricing made the purchase of it next to impossible up until a couple of years ago when I was looking through a different online auction website, and I found a grouping of cameras which piqued my interest. As I zoomed in to look at this lot, there was a portion of a lens I could see.   I could barely read "Dan" on the ring around the lens as I looked closer. Here was my chance to finally own the elusive Dan 35 camera.

Name embossed on the back of the camera.

 The auction happened, and there was minimal interest in this group of cameras as many of them were very common items. However, these are the groups that I really enjoy because tucked away in the corner "could" have a gem hidden, and in this case, there was. I won the camera lot, got the items shipped to me, and there it was as I unwrapped it: the Dan 35 camera. To my amazement, it was the first model.

History:

The Dan 35 is a simple Bolta film camera made in Japan after WWII. Bolta film was invented by Johann Bolten, who founded Bolta-Werks in Nuremberg, Germany, in 1936. The film was to go into his smaller, more compact cameras named the Boltavit. Bolta Werk later produced the Photovit line of cameras from 1936 to the 1950s. Bolta film was incorporated into many different cameras during this period and was a nonperforated 35mm film with a paper backing loaded into special cassettes. Later models of film were spooled similar to films like 828 and 127.

Stetch of Dan 35 Camera by Hagimoto Danji.

 The Dan 35 camera was made by Hagimoto Danji. He built a small plant in Suwa to manufacture the Dan 35 camera, which he sold in his camera shop in Ginza after WWII in 1945. After the moderate success of the Dan 35, there were three different distributors for the camera between 1945 and 1950, when the camera company went bankrupt. The logo on the camera coincides with the company's name, which is H for Hagimoto above Dan for Danji on the far right of the camera.

 Here's where it gets a bit fuzzy. Yamato Koki Seisakusho was a camera company that started in Tokyo in 1943. It made shutters for Japanese camera companies like Gelto and Leotax. The first cameras produced by Yamato were the Minon 35, Minon Six, and Pax 35.

 Yamato, known to produce the Minon 35, a copy of the Dan 35 III and later the Pax 35, is a camera that is a copy of the Super Dan 35. Some sources say Yamato made the Dan 35 and Dan 35 II, but others say they took over producing the Dan 35 after Hagimoto went bankrupt in 1950. Yamato produced the Pax line in the 1960s.

My Camera:

The Dan 35 is a very simple camera with a torpedo-shaped viewfinder on top. It measures 3.25" wide by 2.25" tall from the base to the top of the finder and is 2" deep from the front of the lens to the back of the camera. The camera weighs a whopping 5.2oz and is considered a miniature camera. The Dan 35 has a Dan Anastigmat 40mm f4.5 lens with a Silver-B shutter.

Around the lens is the focus ring, a helicoid focus measuring from 1 meter to infinity. Just behind the aperture numbers on the lens is a knurled ring that sets the aperture. In front of the aperture numbers is another knurled ring that sets the shutter speeds on the camera. There are only shutter speeds, 1/25, 1/50, and 1/100 sec, along with B. On the left of the knurled ring is a cocking lever to cock the shutter, and the shutter release is on the right side to expose the film.

Logo and Torpedo viewfinder

 To load the film, on the top of the camera is a locking lever with "L" for lock and "O" for open. Switch the lever to "O," and the top comes off to load the film. The base comes off to load in later models like the Dan 35 Model II. My camera has no spools to load the film, and the shutter doesn't work. On the back of the camera is a red window with an open/close lever to see the numbers on the paper backing of the film so you know where to stop for your next exposure. Also, Dan 35 is embossed on the back of the camera.

Conclusion:

Unfortunately, I don't have film, and the camera's shutter doesn't work, so I couldn't take photos with this camera to share.

 I mainly have this camera for a couple of reasons. One is its rarity; the more important reason is that it has the same name as me, so I get a kick out of that. I have another miniature camera set aside for next week's blog post, which I also find fascinating.

 Thank you for taking a few minutes to review my blog post about the cameras in my collection. Please be safe until next week.