by Rod_outbak » 01 Feb 2019, 9:14 pm
Chappo,
A bit more digging...
Trawling through a forum about manufacturers logos on telescopes, and there was a discussion about the various Japanese ones.
For example:
Optical Company Logos (Japanese)
Badge SOC=Showa Optical Company (Not the same as S.O.C)
Circle T-Towa
Circle Dash (-)-?????
Circle K-Kenko or Koyu (Pre-Vixen)
Diamond Z-Tanzutsu
Diamond SYW-Yamamoto
Circle Upside down Y-Eikow
Circle + (plus)-Shimadzu Seisakusho
Circle W-? Wannabe?
Diamond BOL-??? Bushnell Optical Labs
HOC-Hino Optical Company
Circle V-Vixen
Crown Goto-Goto Optical (why can’t they all be this easy!)
Circle A-Astro Optical
Circle G, backwards G, in a cross-Astro Optical-Older
COC-Carton Optical Company
APL-Apollo Business & Industry-Bought by Koyu, then Vixen.
AvA=Takahashi on Swift
Star on Crescent-Nishimura
KOL-King Optical
And the, Diamond Z-Zanzutsu (sp?)
In amongst all of this, there was a vague mention to the quality of the 'Circle Z' optics.
"Circle Z is better than most anything you can buy today, but IMHO inferior to Royal, Yamamoto, Eikow, etc."
Sadly; no-one thought to mention WHO Circle Z might be(or what the logo looked like).
There was a company called the "Zuiho Optical Co", which seems to have made optics for a number of other major optics manufacturers. I cant seem to find a logo for the company, but I did find an image of a Zuhio rifle scope, and it looks VERY similar to yours, though possibly an earlier version?
I did find a reference that suggests that 'Zuhio Optical Co.' MIGHT be one of the companies that evolved into OLYMPUS, but I'm not certain about whether I've understood that right.
Anyway; take a look at that Zuhio scope in the attached image, and I can see a LOT of similarities to yours. I also found an advert that said that in 1959, Zuhio made a riflescope with a 31mm objective lens, but the advert didnt mention a variable scope in production at that stage.
And finally; the way the 'JAPAN' is stamped on the scope, gives you an idea of what era it was produced in.
If it says 'Made in Japan', then it's a different era to 'Made in Japan OC' (The OC standing for 'Occupied Country') I think the OC designation was required on all exported products from 1945 through to some time in the mid 1950's, and then it was just stamped 'Japan', and then 'Made in japan' from some time in the early 1960's.
I dont have the detail of each of these time periods(or if I've got them right), but you can search for it on the net.
If I was betting money, I would think you have a Zuhio scope that has been re-badged for another company.
I hope this helps.
- Attachments
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- Screenshot-2019-2-1 Zuiho gun scope image at DuckDuckGo.png (993.13 KiB) Viewed 9182 times
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