Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1999/11/20
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]At 04:59 PM 11/20/1999 -0800, Eric Welch wrote: > >Not to mention it going out of production begs the question. If it was such >a hot item with professionals, why was the Leica the winner of the >longevity contest? > Money. Up to World War II, it was little, teeny Leitz and huge Zeiss Ikon, backed by the corporate connections and fiscal strength of the Zeiss Foundation. After World War II, Leitz found itself with an extremely lucrative contract to supply ALL US Army and Air Force exchanges with cameras, and, hence, was soon flush enough -- not rich, though! -- to dust off that old Contax IV of '36 and to update the design and to bring it out as the M3. Zeiss, on the other hand, had to re-establish a lot of its operations in the west, including the Schott glass works (now in Mainz) and the Zeiss lens works (now in Oberkochen). Zeiss Ikon simply was of a very low priority, especially as it already had half its operation (Goerz in Berlin and Contessa in Stuttgart) in the Western Zone. So, the Foundation concentrated on Schott and Zeiss and Zeiss Ikon had to struggle. The Contax RF sold well -- better than the Prewar camera, in fact, even without all those marvelous doo-dads available before the War. But other camera systems were flat financial losers, especially the Ikoflex TLR (and the British Army gave Franke & Heidecke the same sort of assistance the US Army gave Leitz, and the Rolleiflex simply buried the Ikoflex) and the folders (Super Ikonta, Ikonta, Nettar, Nettax). The only BIG money-maker for the Postwar Zeiss Ikon concern was the Contaflex SLR, whose success convinced the Foundation to keep underwriting a money-losing business. The crises point came in 1956, when it was decided to end all MF camera production and to kill off the Contax and to jump a generation to the Contarex, a revolutionary SLR. (Of the professional-level 35mm RF systems, Kodak's Ektra and Voigtlander's Prominent were gone, and the signals were strong that Nikon was going to do the same, leaving only the Leica, Canon, and Kodak's Retina in the chase. To Zeiss Ikon, the RF was a dying option.) Hence, the mavens of Stuttgart decided to one-up the opposition by producing the Contarex instead of manufacturing the Contax IV and reworking some of those Prewar doo-dads and bringing out an affordable reflex housing. And the Contarex, ultimately bankrupted Zeiss Ikon. Marc msmall@roanoke.infi.net FAX: +540/343-7315 Cha robh bas fir gun ghras fir!