This August, two long-established second-hand camera shops in Tokyo, Alps-Do in Shinjuku and Nikon House in Ginza, are closed.
Alps-Do has handled all sorts of camera and lenses, from the large format to the minuscule spy camera. My biggest purchase there was Hasselblad 500C/M and Planar 80/2.8 kit, and I bought some MF Nikkor lenses and various accessories. The salespersons were very friendly and knowlegeable, and the prices are fair.
Nikon House should be quite popular among some NG members here. As its name suggests, it was a Nikon expert shop, and both the original manager and his successor were literally Nikon experts. I bought and sold many Nikon MF (including 105/2.5 and 85/2.0 in L39 mount) and AF lenses and film bodies. Actually I also bought my first Leica (M4-P) there before the shop changed its name from Sukiya Camera to Nikon House and still handled Leica products.
All the sales persons at Alps-Do salespersons apparently approached their retirement age in the first place, but the general tendencies of the shrinkage of the still camera market and the obvious affect of COVID-19 seems to prompt the closure.
The manager and only sales person of Nikon House also approached his retirement age as well, but the owner of Sukiya Camera has long wanted to close Nikon House since the first manager retired. The second-hand Nikon bodies and lenses sold at Nikon House were in general very well maintained either by experienced in-house repair persons or by Kiitos (the dedicated Nikon repair shop founded by retired Nikon engineers of the repair department).
In addition, another long-established camera chain called Miyama Shokai was also closed this February.
This is a very sad news.
