Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2001/09/10

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Subject: [Leica] Re: Leicas at the Post Exchange
From: Jim Brick <jim_brick@agilent.com>
Date: Mon, 10 Sep 2001 15:18:18 -0700
References: <006301c13a2c$629b4700$a36dfea9@JSMITH> <5b.1b737f56.28ce5ddf@aol.com>

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

In reply to: Message from "Jeffery Smith" <jsmith45@bellsouth.net> (RE: [Leica] cleaning toilets and owning Leicas)
Message from V8PWR@aol.com (Re: [Leica] cleaning toilets and owning Leicas)