Earliest known inspection tag from Yashima Kogaku Seiki Company (Yashica) – 1954
It seems at first glance to be nothing important, but to a fanatic Yashica collector, this is golden. It’s the earliest known tag from Yashima complete with serial number and inspector’s stamps.
What it is. Most cameras from Japan came with some sort of inspection tag, form or sticker. This one says it’s an Inspection Form (across the top). What makes this find special is that it was included with the first twin-lens reflex (TLR) camera that bore the company name – Yashima. The Yashima Flex TLR camera was produced between 1953 and 1954 before changing the name to Yashica Flex in subsequent models and the company became known as Yashica in 1958.
This would have hung from the camera body and the serial number of the camera is recorded on the tag (here the last two numbers are blocked). The inspector would have entered a date next to the word Showa – or that would have been entered by the camera store at the time of sale. Here’s a scan of the reverse side of the tag.
Super cool inspection stamp!
This could be the instruction book (leaflet) that would have come with the camera but since none have been documented yet it could be something else entirely. ***My good friend Paul Sokk has suggested that it could be filled with a pad of papers for recording data about your photographs.***
Update August 22, 2019 – Paul was correct! A+ for him. It is a pad filled with forms for recording your exposures (images).
The form that is inside the green booklet. You would record the date, time of day and even the weather!
“Store the record of your photo data. Print your photos on this paper to better preserve your photos”.
This is the set I just purchased from Japan. It shows the size of the green booklet as it relates to the camera box. It is not an instruction booklet.
More about this exciting find soon!
Thanks for stopping by! – Chris
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