The Minion 35: Tokyo's Brave Entry into 35mm Cameras

The Minion 35c camera of 1949

Tokyo Optical Company (Tokyo Kogaku) was founded as a comprehensive optical company with assistance from the Japanese Imperial Army. The aim was to offset the near monopoly on the production of optical glass that until that point had been enjoyed by Nippon Kogaku—founded with the assistance of the Imperial Navy. Like NK, TO grew with many lucrative military contracts only to see that business come to an end with the termination of the war in August 1945.
    It had previously manufactured a 4 X 5cm roll-film camera that it called the Minion III. With the threat of a government ban on all cameras with a format larger than 35mm, the company turned its attention to the smaller format. Like virtually all the 35mm Japanese camera manufacturers that emerged in the mid-occupation period, it was to follow the lead of Chiyota Kogaku and design a camera that took pictures 24 X 32mm. This was the new format that the government was encouraging and which CK (Minolta) was promoting. Other such cameras included the Olympus 35, the Minolta 35 and the Nikon.
 
    The Minion 35 is to be the oddest of the lot. It offered many features that more sophisticated cameras did not, while remaining generally the most primitive of the four. It is small and compact, barely 4.25 inches long. The exterior is finished in brushed chrome and faux leather. The simple optical viewfinder is bright and surprising easy to view through. The Shutter is a Seikosha-Rapid with speeds from 1 to 1/500th of a second plus B. It has substantial strap lugs while many, more-expensive cameras did not. But it has no accessory shoe nor a rangefinder.
    Production first shows up in late September 1948—about the same time as Nikon sales got started. Initial cost was $3.75. (The Nikon with a f2 lens cost $72.00. These cameras were not in the same league.) By December, TK had manufactured 504 Minion 35A and began to work on a new model called the Minion 35B. The principal difference being a body release that linked to the shutter release and sort-of prevented double exposures. Production of both models continued into 1949 with a final count of the 35A at 758. Finally, in April 1949, sales began. That month, TK exported 75 As and 128 Bs plus one Minion 35C.
    The 35C was a new model. It appears to be almost exactly the same as the 35B, but the gearing had been changed to advance film eight sprockets per frame and the picture size was increased to 24 X 34mm—the same size that the Nikon would go to in August 1949. Sales of the 35A and 35B continued, mostly to India and the USA, plus a few to Hong Kong. For the remainder of 1949, sales of all three models coincided even though no more 35A had been manufactured. USA appears to have been the sole export destination by October 1949. By the end of the year, few 35A were being sold and the 35C was accounting for most sales.
    In April, 1950, TK brought out the Topco Reflex (soon renamed the Primo Reflex), its version of a twin-lens reflex and  began to focus all its efforts in that direction. Sales of its little 35mm cameras lingered but by the end of April 1951, none of these camera models were selling.


    So here we have a camera with a removable but mediocre lens in a good shutter. Other oddities are the vertically-striped aluminum front plate that harks back to Art Deco origins, and a circular-shaped pressure plate.
    The camera featured here is a Minion 35C. In shape and layout, it reminds one of a Barnack Leica, and, Leica-like, it loads from the bottom with no way to view the focal plane. Shutter-cocking is separate from the film advance. The lens is a Toko 4cm f3.5 lens. This is a three-element design similar to a Zeiss Novar. Curiously, it is mounted in front of the shutter and can be unscrewed. However, it remains a front-cell focusing lens—which is even more strange. It focuses down to a nice 2.5 feet and is coated—at least internally.
    It has a flash sync terminal on the left corner of the front plate below the lens, but it is not a PC terminal. Since the camera has no flash shoe, a user would have to use an externally-mounted flashgun. The top and bottom chrome plates are finished nicely, but the paint globbed onto the bottom plate’s interior is almost disgusting.
    The shutter front has not aged well, and some of the black paint is gone. Same for the shutter body which has lost nearly a third of its paint. The shutter still fires at all its speeds, but leaves open when being shutter is cocked before closing to its tensioned position. This precludes any picture taking.


   Camera Serial number (112186) is on the bottom plate. That would suggest a manufacturing date of June 1949. The lens number is 111441. The shutter number is 4903878.
    The MIOJ mark appears only on the back of the camera case.

It is always a question for a manufacturer when entering a new field to decide whether to try to get in at the low end or the high end. NK with its Nikon obviously intended to try for the high end. TK even with a background in high-end, military grade products

Bottom-loading like a Leica

opted for the low end. It did well, although not nearly as well as Konica or Canon. But in the end, its equipment never caught on to the same degree as the Nikon.