Telescope Store in Japan (1)


This is a letter to my astronomy friend in the US.

I just have come back home from Tokyo ! Tokyo was hot and humid, so it was uncomfortable for me....a little bit tired.

I visited two telescope shops (you always write "store", which is correct ?).
They were "Seihosha" and "Kyoei-sangyo", the are located downtown Tokyo and close each other (it took around 10-15 min. walking).

At Seihosha

This shop was located at 2nd floor of small building and has showroom about 5m x 8m. They showed about 10 telescopes, binoculars and small parts and has 3-5 clerks.

At first, I talked a guy sitting at the desk, who was Mr. Yoshizawa, manager about 35-40 years old. I asked him about your e-mail, but the clerk who had sent e-mail to you was absent. But I talked the manager about your
requirement, he said that " I recommend you to send EM-10 to Takahashi to be repaired. Because EM-10B mount is not made anymore, I guess EM-10USD model will be the same on mechanics. But I am not sure. "

I said "All right, please ask Takahashi the parts he wanted could be supplied or not. And when it is OK, please call me the price it costs ?"
I left my business card. Manager said Takahashi would reply in several days.

Then I bought something for me. That was eyepiece, Carton GEN-10.5
mm which was made for spotting scope and has 65 deg. FOV. excellent and cheap (Yen 7,000 ) , but that was the last one. There were many other eyepieces such as Carton Or-6 mm and K-25 mm. They were very cheap (Yen 1,500 !) too.

At Kyoei-Sangyo

This shop was located 1st floor of small building too. The showroom was almost same as Seihosha. There were 3 clerks, and worked busy....
They showed 10 telescopes (almost VIXEN and Meade) and some binoculars.

A middle aged guy said, "May I help you? What are you looking for?"
I said "I am looking for something cheap". Then he said the young clerk who didn't wear tie, even I wore tie, "You, listen to this customer", he
was
gone. Then I talked the young man about telescope and eypieces.

Not good shop!

But there was a good news. Meade eyepieces were sold as bargain price, 40-50 % discount. That was Japanese dealer's sales tactics.
I hardly stopped to buy Meade Ultrawide 8.8 mm for Yen 19,200 !

Sorry, long story above will bore you. Pleasewait untill the phone call from Seihosha will come. I picked up some catalogs (Takahashi, VIXEN, Pentax) from
Kyoei-sangyo. I can send you if you want to see, in spite of Japanese version.

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