Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2001/09/10
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]At 04:22 PM 9/10/01 -0400, Marc James Small wrote: >The deal about Leica in the PX (NOT the Commissary: that's where you buy >food, while the Class Six Store is where you buy your Lagavulin) was in the >late 1940's and early 1950's in Europe and never extended to CONUS. > >When the US PX system was being set up in Europe in 1945, Leitz and Franke >& Heidecke were the only camera companies available to supply the system so >they received exclusive contracts for about a decade. This gave both >companies a huge boost in sales and ready income at a time when Zeiss Ikon >and Ihagee were both struggling most mightily. By 1960, this preference >was gone and the Leica and Rolleiflex cameras were priced out of the PX >system. By the 1980's, PX's were a great source for the swathe of amateur >Canon and Nikon gear but even that is gone today; the water-down PX's now >only sell bottom-end digital cameras and single-use jobbies, along with >loud and cheap clothing and pasteboard furniture. > >The PX's in the Orient picked up Nikon and Canon gear when the ETO got >Leicas and Rolleiflexes. Again, by about 1960, the better stuff had been >replaced by cheaper cameras. > >(The USAF and US Army have a consolidated "Army/Air Force Exchange System" >or AAFES, while the US Navy has a separate system of Base Exchanges quite >similar in nature.) > >Marc When I was in the US Coast Guard, our base PX and shipboard store carried Petri as its "real" camera (1962). Jim