Toyo 5x7 Film Holders

[Sal Santamaura]

Yep, got a bag bellows that smells like that. From the US!...

And where did the US bellows manufacturer source its fabric?

[r.e.]

I'm not sure I do, but we should know about the here-and-now next week, maybe. I think at $80 per holder the order would have gone.

Cheers, Steve

Well I wonder whether the problem was that one, if not two, middlemen got involved in the transaction, and that the price doubled or more. Given what Gary Smith said from Japan about probable price, one as got to ask whether this is what pulled the legs out from under the transaction.

I'm interested in buying 5x7 Toyo holders, but not if the price is going to go up 100% or more because somebody has decided to do the deal through a middleman, especially if it is efectively a co-op order on a product that is otherwise unavailable.

With the greatest respect, given that the first order fell apart due to price, why are people talking to a middleman instead of directly to Toyo?

I really don't understand why someone can't just talk with Toyo or Sakai, either in person or over Skype (not available last time around) and get various prices tied to the number of orders. If someone can give me the phone number, and if Toyo has people who are fluent in English, I'm prepared to make the call myself, although it might be preferable if the call was made by someone in Japan, or fluent in Japanese, or who uses their cameras. As for Sakai, a quick Internet check suggests, rightly or wrongly, that it may be based in South Korea.

[Oren Grad]

As for Sakai, a quick Internet check suggests, rightly or wrongly, that it may be based in South Korea.

Headquarters is in Osaka:

http://www.toyoview.co.jp/sub1.html

Yes, it would be preferable for someone local, fluent in Japanese, to be an intermediary.

If you explore the links on the left, you'll see that the product line is primarily machine tools, not cameras.

[Herb Cunningham]

I no longer shoot enough LF to justify any new stuff. I can't believe it was 4 years!

[John Schneider]

They've never made them in modern times in the current style. Maybe not at all. I seem to remember 5x7 Toyos of the Rittreck-era, with a cast or stamped aluminum light trap housing. I also seem to remember that there was something dimensionally different about them too. But I don't vouch for any of this.

I was looking for a long-lost Heliopan step-down ring last night, and in desperation I looked in my boxes of sheet holders (disused since stepping "down", temporarily I hope, to 612 and 617; since a new child). I found four Toyo WP holders and they are indeed wooden with metal trim. They're the same size as my modern S&S WP holders, but they do look remarkably like the Rittreck holders (WP? 5x7?) I used to have when I owned one of those beast cameras.

[Oren Grad]

I found four Toyo WP holders and they are indeed wooden with metal trim. They're the same size as my modern S&S WP holders, but they do look remarkably like the Rittreck holders (WP? 5x7?) I used to have when I owned one of those beast cameras.

The Rittreck WP holders were made - or at least branded - by Tachihara. The dimensions are different from those of vintage Eastman or modern Chamonix holders, and they're not fully interchangeable.

Anyway, if Toyo 5x7 holders exist, I'd speculate that they're in the same style as your Toyo WP holders. I wonder whether Toyo made half-plate holders for their metal field camera whose "native" format was 4 3/4 x 6 1/2.

[jackpie]

I wonder whether Toyo made half-plate holders for their metal field camera whose "native" format was 4 3/4 x 6 1/2.

Indeed they did.

They made non standard half plate holders that were much more compact and lighter than standard 5x7 size half plate holders. A perfect match for their light and compact camera.