Lemon-sha Ginza-kyokai Store — Local services in Tokyo

Visited for the first time this week and was hoping to snag a nice second hand film camera. However, I was met with staff who did not seem to know the cameras they had on sale. Everyone seemed quite blur. I do not speak Japanese so maybe that contributed to it. I however could make out their labelling system - ie, that J stood for Junk cameras. I picked out a camera with a label B and was told by the staff that it was in good condition. Played around w it in the store for a bit, asked them to teach me the basics of the camera but no one seemed to know. When i asked to test the light meter, alas, it was actually NOT WORKING! If i had just taken their word for it and B meant “a good working camera”, i would have been totally misled.

I didn’t have the confidence to buy anything from this store and left...

A bit stiff prices, but definitely has a lot of equipment. The entrance is really well hidden, but if you come from the Ginza train station, it's just across the street. Look for the green tiled church. The entrance is in the middle of the block facing the station. You take the elevator to the 8th floor. Limited amount of Canon FD and EF-mount lenses, but a larger section of vintage Nikon F-mount. Has some Hasselblad and other exotic cameras if I remember correctly. From what I understand, there's an alphabetic rating system on the equipment based on condition. A to F. Labels in Japanese. Possibly wheelchair accessible, but didn't have any to check with. Overall a tidy and clean store with a lot of knowledge about what...

A word of caution. Mold on camera lenses is a persistent problem. There are two kinds of mold: one that looks like spiders and another that creates a haze. Bring a magnifying lens with you if you want to buy a camera or lens from this shop and closely inspect whatever you intend to buy. I purchased a lens that they told me was clean from mold, but when I looked at it with a magnifying glass at home, I found mold on it. As far as I know, it is impossible to get rid of mold without destroying the lens. It was a nice place to look at old cameras, but the grey nature of the market spoiled the...