Fujita "Fujitaflex"

The first Fujita I bought was the C below, and I spent quite a while trying to puzzle out who made it - even the web mentions are very thin. The very knowledgeable Canadian who sold it to me said in his ad: "This camera is not in McKeown's. I suspect it's a Tougodo product - its lenses are marked "Fujitar" and Tougodo put Fujitar lenses on the TLRs it made for Sears Roebuck". This seemed to make sense, although I was also intrigued as to whether there was a link to Fujita Optical Co, who built the rather odd Fujita 66 SLR series in the late 'fifties (Sugiyama, page 110).

Then in late 2004, I was offered a camera I had never heard of, a Fujita-AB, in mint boxed condition in the US. I bought this and started to obtain some answers. The box for the AB states the maker as Fujita Kogaku Kogyo Ltd., which means Fujita Optical Co. The company was at that time located in Urawa City the regional capital of Saitama Prefecture on the Ara River near Tokyo. The name suggests that they made lenses before becoming a camera manufacturer, and one suspects that they had a strong inter-relationship with Tougodo, explaining the use of each other's parts. Perhaps Tougodo even did some or all of the manufacture?

The box also says the camera is a "Fujitaflex" although the ~flex part does not appear on it (or the C) anywhere. A web search for Fujitaflex turns up absolutely nothing in any country, so it clearly wasn't a name which was used for these rare cameras.

The AB is clearly the earlier model, and the C shows some significant improvements. Think of a later Tougodo Toyocaflex without the selenium meter, and this is what you'd have. It's typical of the world's perversity that the only other AB I've ever heard of turned up on eBay UK a week after I bought mine!