Mycro Camera Page

	Information About the Classifications of the Mycro
	The MYCRO is classified into 8 general models. Note: NEW-model (prewar) and NEW-model (postwar) are listed separately.

MODELS

APPEARANCES

HISTORY

ORIGINAL-model

the first model
made in 1939 (Showa 14)

1939 (Showa 14)
World War II started

NEW-model
(prewar)

made in 1944 (Showa 19)

1945 (Showa 20)
World War II ended

NEW-model
(postwar)

made in 1946 (Showa 21)

I-model
SANWA SHOKAI

made in the first half of 1947
(Showa 22)

1947 (Showa 22)
The Constitution of Japan was enforced.

I-model

made in the latter half of 1948
(Showa 23)

1947-1949 (Showa 22-24)
A duty of the notation of "OCCUPIED JAPAN" was imposed upon the camera for export.

II-model

made in 1950 (Showa 25)

Super16

made in 1950 (Showa 25)

1951 (Showa 26)
The San Francisco peace treaty was concluded.

IIIA-model

made in 1953 (Showa 28)

The model known only in data
MODEL		APPEARANCES
MYCROFLEX		1941 (Showa 16) appears in the advertisement only existence is unknown

The History of Japanese subminiature camera

3 Biggest selling cameras
"MIDGET", "GUZZI" and "MYCRO" were the 3 biggest selling cameras before W.W.II. The first subminiature camera in Japan was MIDGET, and it was so popular. It was then followed by the GUZZI and the MYCRO. The MYCRO got as popular as the MIDGET.

The subminiature camera is a hand-held size camera and it can even take 10 pictures of 14mm x 14mm on 17mm wide film. Varieties of cameras were released after the W.W.II, ranging from good quality ones to tin toy-like ones.

		Midget

		Guzzi

Cameras that earned foreign currencies after W.W.II.
Right after the end of W.W.II, subminiature cameras came into fashion. Ones sold after the W.W.II were actually toys even though they really looked like cameras. It was so pretty, so it was really popular among the American Occupation Army in Japan.

At that time, GHQ prohibited sales of general cameras, but since these subminiature cameras sold so well to the Occupation Army, the domestic sales of subminiature cameras were permitted. 190 thousand cameras were exported and they earned 800 million dollars. Trade magazines of that period state that Mycro produced thousands of cameras per month.

Reference data

THE HISTORY OF THE DOMESTIC CAMERA IN THE ADVERTISEMENT
Asahishinbunsha

THE COLLECTOR'S GUIDE TO JAPANESE CAMERAS
Asahi Sonorama Co.,Ltd.