Koichi Sugiyama
Sugiyama is the most often quoted reference in regard to Japanese camera models. After I first started this project, I was shown the relevant Yashima/Yashica entries of Sugiyama’s “Collector’s Guide to Japanese Cameras”. I am not sure which edition this was or how many there have been (there seems to be a special edition currently available from his website but I don’t know if this has been updated). Since I am somewhat at odds with him, I felt that I needed to say something.
Initially, I thought Sugiyama was the source of much of the incorrect thinking about the early cameras but by this revision, I am starting to think that whilst there are some mistakes, his main flaw is the omission of key models, particularly those that were primarily export focused.
The following are my comments in order of camera models.
Yashima’s Pigeonflex (2212) should be 1953, not 1954 and should come before Shinano’s Pigeonflex I (2211). Sugiyama contradicts himself by putting the Yashimaflex (2307) as earlier (1953 – correct year) than the Yashima Pigeonflex (1954 – wrong year according to Camera-wiki.org) and then saying that the Pigeonflex made by “Yashima Optical was the forerunner of Yashica – see Yashimaflex”. I suspect a simple typographical error. The pages I have been shown do not include the Yashica Flex B or Yashicaflex A-I, AS-I or AS-II. The Yashicaflex S image (2287) displayed is of the correct first 1954 model with NKS-FB shutter but that particular example is fitted with the hood from a 1958 or later camera – it has the narrow “Y” logo and single silver square. Early and late versions of the Yashicaflex C are shown when arguably bigger changes in other models (e.g. shutters, early/late bodies, shutter release type) are ignored.
Sugiyama identified a Yashicaflex “new Model A” (2295) released in 1957. According to TLR66.com, the camera with these specs was called the “Yashicaflex A3”. The film wind knob has the same unusual style of white on white as the earlier A2. This one is hard to prove either way but I have gone with “A3”.
There is no mention of the Yashica A but he does identify the “Yashica-AIII” (2300) which seems to be a grey version of the Yashica A but without hood logo. Yashica documentation refers to a “Yashica AIII”, see here. I have seen a number like this and believe that it’s a domestic Japanese market version. The date of 1959 is clearly not the Yashica A introduction date which Yashima’s advertising puts at 1956 but could fit with the introduction of the grey models into Japan.
Again, the pages I have been shown do not include the following models: Yashica LM, Yashica Mat-LM, Yashica Mat-EM, Yashica 24 and Yashica 12 which all came before the Yashica Mat-124 (2302). And there is no Yashica Mat-124G. Such omissions are not unusual for collector’s guides which tend to focus on key or rare models of interest but there are an awful lot of missing, dare I suggest significant, models here.
In discussing the Yashicaflex/ Yashica name change, I postulated that Sugiyama may have been concentrating, consciously or not, on actual models produced for the domestic Japanese market and tending to ignore models with an export focus. Whilst I believe that there is at least circumstantial evidence to support this idea with earlier cameras, I don’t have enough information on later cameras with both dual ASA/ DIN and metres/ feet scale knobs.
It is not my intention to be critical of Sugiyama (or McKeown, who some believe has relied on Sugiyama) or to try to debunk him. The task he set himself was to compile a collector’s guide for Japanese cameras (there has been an awful lot of cameras), not document the model history of Yashima/ Yashica, and that he has done very well. However, for understanding model development and history, his book is one tool, a starting point, it is not “the bible”.
One important legacy of his is the identification of the Yashica Auto 44 including the only known photograph.
For those that don’t know, Koichi Sugiyama is a classical trained musician and conductor who is famous for, and known as the godfather of, Japanese video games music. He is a busy and very talented man and photography and camera collecting are just two of his many hobbies when he is not composing, conducting or involving himself in politics.