Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2009/07/22

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Subject: [Leica] Sad news: the ultimate demise of Franke and Heidecke
From: john.o.newell at comcast.net (J. Newell)
Date: Thu, 23 Jul 2009 00:49:58 +0000 (UTC)


Sad indeed.? Before, and even after, I saved up enough to buy an M3 in 1972, 
I used my father's Rollei.? I got so used to the ground glass grid that when 
I bought Nikon SLRs with interchangeable screens I always replaced the 
standard screen with an E (ground glass with grid) screen... 



John 




----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Douglas Sharp" <douglas.sharp at gmx.de> 
To: "LEG" <leica at freelists.org>, "Leica Users Group" <lug at 
leica-users.org>, "MUG" <MUGers at yahoogroups.com>, "cvug" <cvug at 
cameraquest.org> 
Sent: Wednesday, July 22, 2009 7:15:46 PM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern 
Subject: [Leica] Sad news: the ultimate demise of Franke and Heidecke 

Sad news Yesterday, the business section of the Hannoversche Allgemeine, our 
local paper, reported that the last remaining employees of Franke & Heidecke 
(formerly Rollei Fototechnik) in Braunschweig have now been made redundant, 
The company filed insolvency in February and the liquidator now sees little 
chance of the company recovering, as it has as good as no assets (its 
premises are rented and the machinery is leased). He did, however, mention 
that certain parties are still interested in maintaining the production of 
Rollei Professional cameras - who they are was not disclosed, nor was how 
they intend to operate. Good news for the 16 apprentices at the factory, 
they have been promised an opportunity to complete their apprenticeships at 
other companies in the region. So, it looks like the professional segment of 
Rollei has now ended its long history after a brave attempt to keep it 
afloat by messrs Franke and Heidecke (descendants of the original founders 
of Rollei). The name of Rollei continues in the marketing organisation that 
was spun off a few years ago to market Rollei-branded digitals manufactured 
in Asia and moved to Berlin. Douglas 
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In reply to: Message from douglas.sharp at gmx.de (Douglas Sharp) ([Leica] Sad news: the ultimate demise of Franke and Heidecke)