[Cryptography] Hong Kong store

[Bob Wilson]

Jerry Leichter said regarding buying from a particular Hong Kong source:
> While I agree with the general principle, do note the second paragraph:  "Back in the 1960s...."  I don't know about you, but I doubt I would remember the name of a long-dead Hong Kong company I bought something from 40+ years ago. And researching the story would be rather difficult in any case.  It doesn't sound like the kind of thing that the mainstream press would cover.  Likely there were stories in contemporary photo magazines - most of which are likely also long gone, and if any are still around, are unlikely to see much reason to have copies of such old issues available for research.  (Magazines like this live for their reviews and their ads - both of which are obsolete within a couple of years after publication.)
Just to fill in the record: I dealt with that place several times and 
still have/use some photo equipment bought from them. That was "T M Chan 
and Company." My grad school friends and I would eagerly discuss Chan's 
latest offerings. Some of the official US importers did not seem to care 
about the fairly small competition Chan offered, e.g. I have a Gossen 
light meter that did not have any obliteration of the name Gossen it 
would have in the US, although the actual model name was what it got 
called in the rest of the world rather than here. Whoever was the 
official importer for Canon, though, made a big deal of it and friends 
who bought Canon equipment generally had to use it with name plates 
literally ground down to remove the engraved name. Customs would not let 
Canon gear in unless you traveled to the port bringing a file or other 
tool and obliterated the name. For models with plates held on by screws 
you could try to buy the plate as a replacement part from the official 
importer, but they caught on quickly.

What mattered was what the official importers threatened to do and 
whether customs workers actually did it. Government's involvement was to 
tell customs inspectors which companies had threatened what, and word 
quickly got around that you could import a particular brand through a 
given port with no problems, because the inspectors there were not 
enforcing the importer's request. That was still somewhat chancy, it was 
not easy for Chan to ship something with complete control over the port 
of entry. But they were quite friendly, I would exchange (pre email!) 
letters for example asking for a particular port. Much of this had to do 
with photographic equipment but it grew to include some electronics such 
as calculators and high fidelity equipment. The savings made the bother 
well worth going through, particularly on a grad student's income.

But photo magazines would definitely not even hint at this whole idea, 
since they got lots of ad money from the official importers who lost 
money if you bought through this channel!
Bob Wilson