Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2001/03/18
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Well, the bottom line is that in a capitalist economy it can generally be assumed that if a company goes out of business, it deserved to do so. It is also quite common that a brand name is one of the most valuable assets of a company, and can be bought and sold just like any other asset. If the current owners of the Voigtländer name wish to license it to a toilet paper manufacturer, that is their right and there is nothing immoral or unethical in it. My 15mm Heliar, while branded Voigtländer, is also clearly identified as Made in Japan. Cosina's use of the brand for their rangefinder line is no more deceptive than, say, Leica's relabelling of a Fuji digital camera as a Leica Digilux or of various Sigma and Minolta lenses as Leica R lenses. Nathan Marc James Small wrote: > 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). > > Marc > > msmall@roanoke.infi.net FAX: +540/343-7315 > Cha robh bas fir gun ghras fir! - -- Nathan Wajsman Herrliberg (ZH), Switzerland e-mail: wajsman@webshuttle.ch General photo site: http://belgiangator.tripod.com/ Belgium photo site: http://members.xoom.com/wajsman/ Motorcycle site: http://www.geocities.com/MotorCity/Downs/1704/