Schneider - Kern - Goerz - Contraves

[jimgalli]

I bought this mug the other day because of my long association with EOTS Contraves Cinetheodolites. For many years I played a tiny part in the maintenance of our freedoms by maintaining these machines. You can look them up if you're curious. But actually my post here is in hopes of some living person who can relate the actual correct history, now more than or right at 50 years ago, of the connections between American Optical Company which was apparently bought by Kern in Switzerland who then had a working connection or were bought by Schneider. Our Cinetheodolite telescopes that we used proudly displayed that the optical sections were made by Kern of Switzerland. No one would know that Goerz at least had a name connection with those products. In our dusty "stores" we still had a box or two with NOS replacement parts that had the name Goerz on them.

I'm guessing here. Making some stuff up but using words like "apparently" etc. Don't add to the guessing. If you actually know the history I'd love to be educated. Once upon a time Goerz and Kern and Schneider and Contraves all had a connection. Curious if anyone alive remembers. Or printed material about those connections and history would be most welcome. Leave the guessing to me though. FWIW Goerz - Contraves - Kern can all be found with connections but as far as the EOTS Contraves themselves, the name Schneider never appears. In our large format world though, many of us are well aware of the Gold Dot Dagor's, made by Kern, marketed by Schneider Corporation, and with the Goerz Dagor name intact. Also noble are the Trigor's made in Switzerland.

 

[reddesert]

Contraves was a company formed by a merger between a division of Owens, and part or all of a Swiss company known as Goerz - whether this was just the Goerz division of some larger Kern company, I don't know. They seem to have been a merger of the Brashear and Goerz businesses, both long-standing companies in optics. Contraves existed from the 1970s into the 2000s mostly in the aerospace/defense industry. They made your cinetheodolites, and hardware for satellite communications, but another aspect of their business was telescopes. I know that they built the 3.7-m telescope for the Air Force that is on on Haleakala (Maui, Hawaii), and that they polished the 8-m mirror for the Japanese Subaru telescope on Mauna Kea. They may have built other instruments in that time period (I mean, if a company can build an optical shop large enough to polish an 8-meter mirror, clearly it is building other things, the question is how many of the projects are openly acknowledged).

The thing with the aerospace industry is that names and business units get passed around like hot potatoes. Contraves itself seems to have been created by a spinning-off of two units, and by the end of its run in the early 2000s it was a much smaller business owned by yet another defense contractor, that got sold to some local Pittsburgh investors and realigned into a different business. Were the part of Kern that turned into Contraves, and the part of Kern that made Dagors and was linked to Schneider, related? I don't know. I don't know who if anyone owns the trademarks like "Dagor" that once belonged to Goerz.

 

[David Lindquist]

So here is some of what I know, maybe some is beyond the scope of what you are after, Jim.

1. The Company name C.P. Goerz American Optical Company goes back at least to the early 20th century (ref, 1915 catalogue on Camera eccentric.) I expect it might go back to C.P. Goerz Berlin's establishing their subsidiary in the U.S. around the turn of the last century.

2. "American Optical Company" here has and had no connection with the company that today mostly makes sunglasses. A negative is hard to prove but no where in the company histories of American Optical Co. will you see reference to them ever making camera lenses with Goerz in the brand name. Some years ago I had correspondence with a person who was an informal historian for AO, he had never heard of them owning Goerz.

3. The company name changed from C.P. Goerz American Optical Company to Goerz Optical Co., Inc in 1964. Reference: I have a sheet on the Dagor lenses dated January 1964 which uses the former company name and a price list dated December 1964 which shows the latter name. I got these from Kerry Thalman who some years ago made reference to this on one or another of the photo forums.

4. The "Golden" Dagor became the "Gold Dot" Dagor in 1963. Reference: Bob Schwalberg's history of the Dagor in the January 1972 issue of Popular Photography. And I've seen multiple examples of Gold Dot Dagors on ebay with the older company name. Rather confusingly Goerz continued to use the name "Golden" and not "Gold Dot" in their through at least 1967. "Golden" appears on a 1967 price list I have, "Gold Dot" on a 1970 price list.

5. Kollmorgen bought Goerz Optical Company, Inc. late 1968 - early 1969. A news story I retrieved on line dated Nov 1968 reports the impending sale expected to close early 1969.

6. A Kollmorgen company history available on line says something to the effect that the acquisition of GOC was not so beneficial but does not elaborate.

7. Schneider, via the entity Schneider Corporation of America, well here's how they put it in a leaflet dated 1972: "Schneider Corporation of America has taken title to the well known standard lenses formerly manufactured by the Goerz Optical Company of Pittsburgh, Pa. The names Artar, Trigor and Dagor have now joined the Schneider product family."

Maybe significant here is the term "standard lenses". Goerz Optical Co. did lots of stuff besides making these standard lenses including OEM work and optics only available to the US military, for example. It sounds like the products you are interested in might fall under the remit of this area, an area that perhaps Kollmorgen unloaded elsewhere.

David

 

[AgX]

(Without diving deep into my archive) I do not see any connection between Kern Europe and Goerz and Schneider in Europe, aside of Zschokke having worked for Kern and Goerz.

 

[DREW WILEY]

My Kern 14-inch "Made in Switzerland" Dagors (as marked on the lens) came in boxes labeled Schneider America on the outside. Clearly, that meant Schneider was just the marketing entity holding such rights, but not the actual maker. The gold dot itself was present on the lenses, both the single and multicoated versions of that focal length, but not any "Gold Dot" label anywhere, including the box.