An antique camera collector in Tianjin (4)

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Edited and translated by Du Mingming, People's Daily Online

In recent years, antique cameras are increasingly being favored by collectors thanks to their big appreciation space and few fakes.

Wang Guosheng, a collector in China's Tianjin, has collected a dozen types of items like red wood furniture, antiques, calligraphies, paintings, cameras and so on. Nearly seven thousand items are stuffed in his "collection room", among which about one thousand old cameras are handed down by his father. He will live up to his father's expectations and carry on antique camera collection. So far, he has possessed more than two thousand old cameras, and the Tianjin-manufactured ones are of high collection value.

Tianjin Camera Factory is one of the seven earliest Chinese camera factories being built after the foundation of People's Republic of China. It enjoyed great fame at that time.

"The first Chinese-made camera was manufactured by Tianjin Camera Factory in 1956 which was named "Qiyi"(July 1st). It is the first folding camera made by Chinese people, and is also called '120 Camera'". said Zhang Guosheng. He took out a "Qiyi" (July 1st) brand camera and said that there were only 40 samples, and no mass production. The camera is regarded as "Camera King" among Chinese-made cameras with high collection value. The classical camera types include "Qiyi", "Xingfu" (Happiness) 1, "Chenguang" (Morning Glory) 135 SLR Camera show the high level of camera production in Tianjin.