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How Long Has Each Manufacturer Been Around? (1 Viewer)

David in NC

David in NC

Well-known member
I was wondering how long each maker/optics company making binoculars has been around...

Who is the oldest?

I am also thinking that some answers might be murky, especially if companies were bought out or changed names. With Vortex, should I use Eagle Optics, Vortex, or Kamakura (or "X" Chinese company?) :smoke:

Also, this certainly begets Steve C's great topic "So, just what is a binocular factory?" http://www.birdforum.net/showthread.php?t=299533

Alright...

Zeiss
Company 1846 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Zeiss_AG#Sports_Optics
Binoculars 1894 http://home.europa.com/~telscope/zeissbn2.txt

Leica
Company 1849 http://camerapedia.wikia.com/wiki/Leica
Binoculars 1907 http://home.europa.com/~telscope/leitzbin.txt

Swarovski
Company 1892 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swarovski
Binoculars 1935 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swarovski_Optik


Well...got to go to work. Anybody want to continue for me? :t:
 
Vanguard, as Guardforce, in 1986 http://www.vanguardworld.co.uk/index.php/pv/about-us/who-we-are.html

Optics have been branded as Guardforce, Guardforce Vanguard, and Vanguard.

One of the very few owner manufacturers operating without any subcontracting, Zeiss included.

Kenko, 1957, optics apparently since 1974 http://www.kenkoglobal.com/about-us/company-history.html

OEM giant, wholly owns Sightron (http://www.kenkoglobal.com/about-us/group-company-chart.html) and manufactures for many well known global brands.
 
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. Broadhurst Clarkson and Fuller, previously Broadhurst Clarkson, maybe the world's oldest optical company, being started originally in 1750 when Benjamin Martin started an instrument making business with his son who patented a machine for producing drawn brass tubes. It kept going through the 19th century under three different owners, until Clarkson bought it in 1873 and Broadhurst became a partner in 1892.

I bought my first telescope from them, a handmade brass refractor in 1957. The tube making machines may well be similar or identical to the ones made in the 1700's.

Dudley Fuller, whom I knew quite well, bought Broadhurst Clarkson and the company still flourishes today.
Dudley, unfortunately, passed away recently and will be sadly missed. He was also a jazz musician and he showed me his device he invented for musical scales. He probably loved his music as much as optics.

I wonder if in fact, there are any other firms in the world that are older and have continually been involved in optics.
I don't think Broadhurst Clarkson made binoculars, although they may have made some binocular telescopes?
They made countless thousands of telescopes and the quality of their draw tube telescopes is really excellent, especially mechanically. I have some of these and they are beautifully machined. A Ross draw tube telescope I had, had much worse optics than the Broadhurst Clarkson scopes, where the optics were made by hand.
 
Asahi/Pentax goes back to making spectacles in 1919,
and was primarily into camera lenses. Their branding of binoculars
goes back to about the late 30s.

Commercial coating goes back to 1935 at Zeiss.
Multi-layer coating goes back to WW-2, but it was soft.
Asahi partnered with Zeiss in developing a multi-coating that
could be hard enough to be widely sold in cameras, and did some coating for them,
but Zeiss went with Yashica for the overall camera partnership.

In the mid-70s, Asahi developed the SMC/Takumar 9-layer coating
'pale amber' coating , with 99.8% transmission. In parallel,
Zeiss made the "T-Coating", starting with one layer and building
more layers in the mid-70s. Various 'amber' multi-coatings, with
2 or more layers, were distributed through other optics makers.
 
One of my favorite makers, quality-wise, is Ofuna.
You will rarely see their name directly, but they built for
Tower, and under the brands "Wuest", "Made for Wollensak", and others.
They began as the Tomioka factory in WW2, which also originated Kamakura.
Their mechanical quality on the Korean-War Era 8x30s and 6x30s is outstanding.
Solid and smooth focusers, and the advanced eyepiece they acquired during
Tower's(American Co, 1933, lifted French EP designs) shot at a comeback, are hallmarks.

-----------

Mirador is a fascinating maker.
Through WW2 they developed nifty precision spying binocs,
including extra-wide 6x18s, 7x25s, and larger models. They sort
of riffed on some cool little Zeiss mini-designs of the 1930s.

You can see the little designs under various makers and brands.
Their lavish build quality and designs made them too
expensive for a Japanese brand.
They developed lower-cost lines like "Hurricane", but died in the 60s.

Fujinon figured out how to make their innovations reasonable to manufacture,
and absorbed the influences into the Bushnell Custom Series, and
to this day, in the focusers and EPs.

------------------

Fujinon goes back to just 1947 in binoculars.
They were great at acquiring and innovating,
but unlike Mirador, they drove hard to make advanced features
economically buildable, and even maintainable. Their sense of
practicality kept them alive and still makes them famous,
along with the surprising decent price for the field.
The concept of trade-offs for ease-of-use shows in the Bushnell Customs.

---------------

You can see there is a lot of intertwined history...
I like to think of the histories of ideas across companies..
 
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David in NC said:
I was wondering how long each maker/optics company making binoculars has been around...

Who is the oldest?

I am also thinking that some answers might be murky, especially if companies were bought out or changed names. With Vortex, should I use Eagle Optics, Vortex, or Kamakura (or "X" Chinese company?) :smoke:

Also, this certainly begets Steve C's great topic "So, just what is a binocular factory?" http://www.birdforum.net/showthread.php?t=299533

Alright...

Zeiss
Company 1846 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Zeiss_AG#Sports_Optics
Binoculars 1894 http://home.europa.com/~telscope/zeissbn2.txt

Leica
Company 1849 http://camerapedia.wikia.com/wiki/Leica
Binoculars 1907 http://home.europa.com/~telscope/leitzbin.txt

Swarovski
Company 1892 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swarovski
Binoculars 1935 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swarovski_Optik


Well...got to go to work. Anybody want to continue for me? :t:[/QUOTE

Hi David:

Although Zeiss made the first SUCCESSFUL Porro prism binocular in 1894, I think you will find they had non-prismatic binoculars before that. Somewhere in the basement is Hans Seegar's book, but I don't have the energy to look for it just now.:cat:

Cheers,

Bill
Click to expand...
 
. Optolyth say that they were founded in 1856 by J. E. Sill.

Taylor Hobson or Taylor Taylor Hobson were founded in 1886 in Leicester and are still there as Cooke optics.
They were recently given an Oscar for their motion picture lenses.

Dollond and Aitchison say they were founded in 1750 by Peter Dollond who started making optical instruments. They had the same name until 2015, but after a buyout by Boots in 2009 the optical dispensing shops are being called Boots.

So I am not sure what the answer is, as to who is the oldest optical business.
 
Nikon - 1917 (Known then as Nippon Kogaku K. K.)

Zeiss - I can find no evidence that Zeiss commercially manufactured any binoculars before 1894. Seeger's grey book is mute. Gubas states that in 1851 Zeiss included a low power opera glass in a sales program but believes it was unlikely of Zeiss manufacture.

Meopta - Optikotechna began in 1933 and after WW II Optikotechna and other Czech optical companies including Srb & Stys which was founded in 1919 were nationalized in 1945 under the name Meopta. I think the Meopta factory was established in the former Srb & Stys facility in Prague.
 
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The Dutch company from Caroline Bleekers NEDOPTIFA made binoculars for the Dutch Army just before and after WWII.

The oldest manufacturer (and inventor of the binocular) is Lipperheijn from the Netherlands who made them since 1608.

Jan
 
LPT said:
Nikon - 1917 (Known then as Nippon Kogaku K. K.)

Zeiss - I can find no evidence that Zeiss commercially manufactured any binoculars before 1894. Seeger's grey book is mute. Gubas states that in 1851 Zeiss included a low power opera glass in a sales program but believes it was unlikely of Zeiss manufacture.

Meopta - Otptikotechna began in 1933 and after WW II Optikotechna and some other Czech optical companies including Srb & Stys were nationalised under the name Meopta.
Click to expand...

Well, I made no strong comment to the opposite; I just thought it was reasonable, and figured some might not consider a non-prismatic binocular to BE a binocular. For years, I referred to them as "field glasses" as opposed to binoculars. I was led in the direction by an "expert" who wasn't. Thus my aversion to the same.

I do know that to get started Nikon imported several engineers and technicians from Zeiss.

Cheers,

Bill
 
jan van daalen said:
The Dutch company from Caroline Bleekers NEDOPTIFA made binoculars for the Dutch Army just before and after WWII.

The oldest manufacturer (and inventor of the binocular) is Lipperheijn from the Netherlands who made them since 1608.

Jan
Click to expand...

. . . two months after he discovered (rediscovered?) the telescope.

Also, I have read about Gijs's contribution to getting recognition for her; good job!

Bill
 
This is a good study by Peter Abrahams in which the origins of Nikon and some other Japanese optical manufacturers are covered: http://home.europa.com/~telscope/japanbin.txt

Later in the paper it is noted, "The Japanese bought about 200,000 pounds of optical glass from Schott 1939-1944." Although the fact is interesting and undoubtedly true, it may give the impression that during WW II the Japanese had a limited capacity to manufacture quality optical glass. But this is not so - a US Technical Mission to Japan report on "Japanese Optics" (1945) found that during the war Nippon Kogaku "produced 41 types of glass and the Fuji Optical Co. 33 types; together they produced 130 tonnes."
 
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kestrel1 said:
Meopta 1933.
Click to expand...

That's a shocker, because they were virtually unknown in the U.S. until about 10 years ago. Initially, pretty much ignored by the birding community, because of the yellow tint, but then when the 8x32 model came out with a more neutral color balance, it came on the radar, and things have perked up with the HD model, and now they have their own sub-forum. Too bad there will not be a 7x42 HD.

<B>
 
Dow Corning, Litton Industries, Pyrex and some others here the US have been making lenses for large telescopes, to include grinding, shaping, polishing and coating.
The do work for other optic makers, rumor has it that they have coated lenses for Zeiss and Leupold.
I tried contacting them several years ago, just curious as to who they did work for and they refused to comment.
Kohlmorgen makes submarine periscopes and other optical gear for various navies.
I saw what at first looked kind of like a pair of Fujinon 7x50's that was marked Litton, had special laser resistant glass and coating to work with laser pointers and a digital compass...$23,000.00+.
There are some small operations here in the US that produce or modify optics for use by NASA on their various projects.
Art
 
Kodak and Perkin Elmer were major U.S. makers for surveillance. Really big and expensive stuff. Aero Ektars, thorium glass and coated from 1940 also. Similar Kodak eyepieces.
 
. Apparently there is an enterprise in Sri Lanka (Ceylon) in the jungle, near Kandy in the centre of the island that has been making optics since the 1300s.
This may be the oldest optics firm in the world, unless someone has some other candidate.

I'm also told that Snell's law was actually known in the Arab world around the year 1000.
 
Binastro said:
. Apparently there is an enterprise in Sri Lanka (Ceylon) in the jungle, near Kandy in the centre of the island that has been making optics since the 1300s.
This may be the oldest optics firm in the world, unless someone has some other candidate.

I'm also told that Snell's law was actually known in the Arab world around the year 1000.
Click to expand...

A singlet objective was found in the unearthing of Ur of the Chaldees.

BUT, I would like to see some documentation concerning this 14th century "firm."
 
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