Japan 1948 – Subminiature – 16 mm – Rare.
The Tone Micro was manufactured by Toko in 1948
At the time, a lot of Japanese manufacturers were producing micro cameras which were mainly intended as toys. The most common production was the Hit type, with which it was hardly possible to take any picture. They were simple to produce at large scale.
Some other subminiature cameras like the Morita or the Spappy were on the contrary built to be real cameras but in little formats and required a more complex manufacturing process.
The Tone Micro was an interesting attempt to scale-up the features of a subminiature camera while remaining in the range of the Hit type cameras . The tone has exactly the same proportions of a Hit camera but comes with an outstanding set of very interesting features.
This incredible little camera has a focusing lens (close-focusing to 2 feet), a 25mm lens (with apertures from f3.5-11.0) and variable shutter speeds. It also comes with two viewing systems, a regular eye-level finder and a waist level finder.
Often mixed up with less valuable Hit cameras, the Tone Micro is an incredibly intricate machine and quite a sought after collectible.
