Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2001/03/17

[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]

Subject: Re: [Leica] On the History of Voigtländer
From: John Collier <jbcollier@home.com>
Date: Sat, 17 Mar 2001 16:27:16 -0700

So even the legendary Voigtländer cameras from the fifties and sixties have
really nothing to do with anyone named Voigtländer. Hmm, your problem seems
to be not that cameras are being made called Voigtländer which are not; but,
that they are not being made by Germans? Can you please explain why Germans
making Voigtländer cameras and having nothing to do with the family
Voigtländer is okay but production by some other country is not okay?

Perhaps I have misinterpreted your arguments and perhaps you also despise
the cameras from the fifties and sixties.

Puzzled,

John Collier

> From: Marc James Small <msmall@roanoke.infi.net>
> 
> At 08:29 PM 3/17/2001 GMT, Georg Bauer wrote:
>> Hell, if anybody is to be
>> blamed, it's the old management of Voigtländer that let the company go
>> broke. 
> 
> Well, they didn't.  When the direct male Voigtländer line died out, a
> family trust was established.  This trust sold the company to the Schering
> drug company in 1925.  When Schering was going through some fiscal woes in
> the early 1950's, they, in turn, sold the Voigtländer concern to the Zeiss
> foundation.  In 1965, Zeiss merged Voigtländer into Zeiss Ikon.  When the
> Zeiss foundation decided to halt camera production by Z-I-V, most of the
> remnants of Voigtländer were sold to Rolleiflex Fototechnic.  And, when
> Rollei went bankrupt in 1980, the Voigtländer assets were retained by
> Rollei save for the name.
> 
> And that is the name which is currently licensed to Cosina (and to others).
>