Today, Topcon is largely a forgotten brand. Nevertheless, Topcon made rugged, superbly built (albeit heavy) cameras that might have fared better had its US distributor, Beseler (a darkroom equipment supplier), been more effective in promoting the brand.
Started in 1932 as Tōkyō Kōgaku Kikai KK (in English, Tokyo Optical Company Ltd) the company made a few minor forays into camera manufacturing before hitting its stride with SLRs, starting with the Topcon R in 1957 – 24 months before either Nikon or Canon produced an SLR, at which point it stopped the production of all its other camera formats.
