Those little gold stickers

[Sirius Glass]

Question: If the Gold stickers were placed on the front or rear element of a Holga, would the image improve?

Steve

 

[Christopher Walrath]

Yes but you wouldn't be able to see it.

 

[Dan Fromm]

What's the story with those stickers? Were they a global industry agreement?

Strictly Japanese.

In the early 1950s "Made In Japan" was synonym for junk. Badly made junk, not well made junk. This was true of everything made in Japan, including cameras. Think of the Hit and similar subminiatures.

At the time there were many small machine shops making so-so 6x6 TLRs, so-so fixed lens 35 mm viewfinder cameras, small lens grinding shops making lenses for them, ... Junk.

In order to help export sales the government set up Japan Camera Inspection Institute to improve the quality of cameras exported from Japan. Simply idea, due I think, to W. E. Deming. JCII sampled cameras and lenses from every batch ready to be ship, tested the sample. Sample size set to detect, with high enough probability, batches whose pass rate was above the maximum acceptable. If the items in the sample passed test every item in the batch got the "Passed" sticker. If any failed, nothing in the batch got the sticker. Items without the sticker couldn't be exported.

This was a smart implementation of statistical quality control and is one of the reasons that the Japanese camera industry drove most of their European competitors out of business.

That said, when Eric Beltrando and I were working on our article on Boyer, the company and its lenses, he told me a story from Boyer's last days. Boyer had a line of projector lenses. Mounted in metal, carefully inspected, ... , and expensive. One of their customers told M. Kiritsis, Boyer's then owner, that he'd been offered lenses from Japan at a much lower price than Boyer's. To which M. Kiritsis, who was a very honorable person, replied to the effect that he couldn't lower his price and that the customer should buy lenses from Japan. The customer responded that he tested the trial batch from Japan and that the fraction of lenses that passed acceptance testing was so low that Boyer's lenses were still the better buy.

 

[Ian Grant]

Strictly Japanese.

Not strictly true Dan, both Canon and Nikon were manufacturing nigh quality cameras in the early 1950's albeit derived from Leica's and Contax's.

The quality of the Nikon's and particularly their lenses was higher than the German lenses, often older pre WWII versions because availability of new lenses was poor and CZJ quality variable.

But yes in general overall Japanese camera quality in the early 50's wasn't high, they'd passed that mantle to Honk Kong by the 60's.

Ian

 

[Dan Fromm]

Ian, I must have been unclear. JCII provided quality control (for export goods only) only to Japanese lens and camera manufacturers. That's what I meant when I wrote "strictly Japanese."

Yes indeed Canon and Nikon (listed in alphabetical order, no invidious distinctions intended) made high quality optical goods in the early 1950s. So did, e.g., Olympus and, I'm sure, some other Japanese manufacturers. But in the US in those days -- I was there -- "Made in Japan" was read as "cheap, junk." As a child I had Japanese toys, some from the town of Usa marked "Made in Usa." Nasty cheap sheet metal ...

Funny thing is, my father, who then worked for Westinghouse Electric, spent part of 1953 in Japan teaching Westinghouse trade secrets to Mitsubishi Electric. Japan had exchange controls, couldn't compensate my father directly. So they fed him very well, showed him the country, and sent him home with a mountain of gifts. The gifts were all beautifully made. They also introduced him to "Deming thought," which was then unknown in the US.

I have no idea of your age, but if you were old enough to notice much in the early '50s you were probably denied our experience with imports from Japan. This because, IIRC, in those days the UK still had import controls.

Cheers,

Dan

 

[mopar_guy]

Remember that Japanese industry was damaged extensively during WW II. After the war was over the US government gave assistance to the Japanese and the goods that were imported by the US helped to restart the Japanese economy. A lot of these items were of low quality and price, but from the perspective of the Japanese manufacturers, that was what Americans wanted to buy. When the terms "Made in Japan" and "cheep" became synonyms, Japanese companies steadily worked to raise the quality of their products. The JCII program was a further effort to combat against the impression that Japanese products were inferior.

 

[Ian Grant]

Yes you're right Dan, my first memories of cameras were all British or German in the mid 1950's. Esign Ful-Vue's, Kodak Bantams, Brownie 127's etc. The first serious camera I remember was a Contarex belonging to one of my teachers in the early 1960's. So no exposure to Japanese goods at all until my teens.

It must have been about 1965 before I first saw a Japanese camera, a Yashica Lynx.

There's a very interesting 1950 article by H,S.Newcombe (a camera dealer/shop owner) who wrote books on "The Miniature Camera" as well as magazine articles complaining that he had almost no new cameras available to sell through his shop because of Import restrictions, those were only slowly lifted during the 50's and quotas abandoned in the 1960's which heralded the mass import of by then high quality Japanese cameras.

Newcombe complained about the poor quality of most British cameras 1949/50, which was prior to the release of the Reid (Leica copy) MPP (Linhof & Rolleflex/cord copies).

Ian

 

[perkeleellinen]

In order to help export sales the government set up Japan Camera Inspection Institute to improve the quality of cameras exported from Japan. Simply idea, due I think, to W. E. Deming. [...]
This was a smart implementation of statistical quality control and is one of the reasons that the Japanese camera industry drove most of their European competitors out of business.

Thanks for the reply, Dan. I used to work as a statistical process control engineer and I knew Deming did much to improve Japan's quality control but never thought of how that impacted the camera industry. When we used to train the shop floor guys we would compare the Japanese motorbike industry to the British.

 

[Francis in VT]

My memory on the JCII sticker is what Dan Fromm stated, an attempt to boost the quality. It is a shame that people in the banking industry weren't made aware of. Around 1978 as the manager of a retail photo store I went to an auction of a studio/store. I was sent a listing of the lenses and equipment. It was a strange list because it was compiled by bank personnel. The numbers on the lenses were there but no name, just the JCII sticker. I made a phone call and explained the problem. The bankers were happy.

 

[Newt_on_Swings]

I studied this in my business classes, one of my professors actually went to Japan to help them with best practices and quality management. Very interesting to now understand how it tied into JCII. I love apug.

 

[Dan Fromm]

I studied this in my business classes, one of my professors actually went to Japan to help them with best practices and quality management. Very interesting to now understand how it tied into JCII. I love apug.

"APUG" didn't answer the question, individuals did. The best APUG did for for the original poster (and perhaps you) was provide a place for the original poster to ask a question.

 

[Peter Simpson]

Goo Gone is a citrus de-greaser cut with a glycerine.

Far better is a product called Citra Solv. This stuff dies wonders on old foam seals.

I looked up the MSDS for Goo Gone, and it's 95% deodorized Kerosene. The citrus is there to make it smell nice. MSDS: http://www.googone.com/c.983960/site/gg/MSDS/goo gone.pdf

Citra-Solv, I agree, is great stuff, and *its* MSDS indicates that it's 90% d-Limonene, citrus solvent: http://www.greenhome.com/products/msds/msdscitrasolve.pdf

 

[M.A.Longmore]

I love apug.

.
I Love APUG !

Ron
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[Roger Thoms]

I looked up the MSDS for Goo Gone, and it's 95% deodorized Kerosene. The citrus is there to make it smell nice. MSDS: http://www.googone.com/c.983960/site/gg/MSDS/goo gone.pdf

Citra-Solv, I agree, is great stuff, and *its* MSDS indicates that it's 90% d-Limonene, citrus solvent: http://www.greenhome.com/products/msds/msdscitrasolve.pdf

Another citrus based label remover is De-Solv-it, which I've used for many years. I used to have to order it from a video supply company, now Ace hardware carries it.

Roger