Regal Olympic

The Regal Olympic is a viewfinder camera taking 4×6.5cm and 3×4cm pictures on 127 film, announced in late 1937 by Asahi Bussan.

See also the 3×4cm and 4×4cm Olympic, the 24×36mm Super Olympic, the 4.5×6cm Semi Olympic and the 4×6.5cm Vest Olympic.

Commercial life

Advertisement for the Olympic cameras in The British Journal Photographic Almanac 1938. (Image rights)

The Regal Olympic is only known from an advertisement placed by Asahi Bussan in The British Journal Photographic Almanac 1938, published at the end of 1937. It is mentioned in no other source, and was probably never commercially sold. No surviving example has been observed so far.

Description

The camera certainly has a metal body. Its overall shape reminds that of the Vest Olympic sold by the same company, but the body is actually different. It seems that the lens and shutter assembly is mounted on a helical pulled out by turning a massive metal ring, an arrangement similar to the bakelite Olympic C or Semi Olympic. There is a tubular optical finder in the middle of the top plate, and large thin knobs at both ends.

The advertisement mentions a Ukas Anastigmat 75mm f/4.5 lens and a shutter announced as "Olympic System". The shutter plate is marked Regal Olympic at the top and has the AB logo of Asahi Bussan on the right. The speed settings are engraved on the speed rim, in the order: T, B, 150, 100, 50, 25 (the reverse of the Fiskus shutter mounted on the Vest Olympic).

Regal Olympic. From The British Photography Journal Almanac 1938. (Image rights)

Bibliography

• The British Journal Photographic Almanac 1938, edited by Arthur J. Dalladay. London: Henri Greenwood & Co., Ltd. Publication date not indicated, certainly late 1937. Advertisement by Asahi Bussan on pp.694–5.