Inside a vintage German "Hanseat" 8x30 (1 Viewer)

[Binocollector]

Unfortunately one day my nice little Revue 8x30 (I think an export version of a basic Zeiss Jena 8x30) was on my list...

It might have been "just" a Russian or Japanese bino. I am not sure "Revue" ever sold rebranded Zeiss-binos even some people on ebay claim so. But every time one takes a closer look at those ebay ads -- it turns out to be Russian or Japanese glass. But there might be a slim chance there were Revue-branded Zeiss-Jena-binos. I am not 100% certain.

 

[Bino Steve]

Revue just appears to be a "Germanese" bino, jb81 I've seen. Using fake German names was big when Japan was trying to wipe out the German market.

 

[Binocollector]

Revue just appears to be a "Germanese" bino, jb81 I've seen. Using fake German names was big when Japan was trying to wipe out the German market.

That's not exactly what went down. It was not a "fake German name" it was simply a catalog order brand like a dozen others that existed at the time -- "Revue" was sold by the catalog order company "Neckermann" (they came up with the name and sold binos from Russia and Japan or cameras with Zeiss Jena lenses under that name, just as "Bresser" sold Russian, Japanese and Chinese optics over time) and there were two other big catalog order companies at the time in germany, "Otto" and "Quelle". There were a ton of brands that were basically just rebranded Japanes binos like "Beroflex", "Presenta", etc. Then there were "store brands" that mainly sold cameras like "Porst" and there were companies like "Eschenbach" which for example made glasses and frames (I wore an "Eschenbach" Titanflex frame for a long time) but no binos, they simply imported them -- also from Japan.
Japan didn't try to directly "wipe out the German market" (they just tried to become the biggest producer of binos worldwide at the time, just as they tried succesfully to become the biggest producer of steel at some time or the biggest producer of cars, etc), there were a number of German brands, shops, etc that wanted to sell binos and ordered them in Japan, same as "private label" brands do today with Chinese optics, like APM, Orion, Celestron, etc. It was an unfortunate side effect that some German brands didn't survive that. But most of those vintage Japanese binos were leaps and bounds ahead of the Chinese crap that came afterwards. There is a noticeable drop in quality even in the Japanese binos shortly before production of the cheap models shifted more or less completely to China. Parts were no longer metal but plastic, overall quality declined, etc. I have a bino marked "Japan" that is absolute cheap crap and was made shortly before production went to China.
Of course nowadays China does make some quality optics, even though they are very much lacking in quality control.

 

[Bino Steve]

Great info and thanks for clarification. It's odd to see the binocular history as a precursor to the fate of the electronics industry regarding Japan and China. Big mistake.

 

[Wasabrot]

When searching for binoculars from Wetzlar I have found the brand PikAs (Link to old advert for PikAs).
They look suspicious like Porlerims made by Hartmann.
Does someone already held such a binocular in his hands and can say something about optical quality?

 

[Wasabrot]

A couple of weeks ago i purchased a PikAs Wetzlar 8x30 and today I found time to open and clean it.
As expected it is inside the same as a Hartmann Wetzlar Porlerim (Leichtmetall) so it provided me no suprises during disassembling.

The only difference i have found in comparison to my Hartmann Polerim 8x30 Weitwinkel is that the prisms are not coated. I don't know if this is just at PikAs Wetzlars or even for the Leichtmetall Porlerims.

The PikAs is assembled again and roughly conditional collomated. For fine tuning i have to wait for a clear night or dawn with a bright venus.

The last mystery for me is why Hartmann has build so many Porlerim under different names like Hanseat or PikAs Wetzlar.

 

[Gijs van Ginkel]

Wasabrot, post 26,
The answer to your question is a bit of speculation, but I have visited Hartmann a number of times and the company was struggling to stay alive amidst the growing competition of the Japanes binocular industry and with the Porlerim (the companies lowest priced binocular) it tried to get a larger part of the market and the idea was probably that the company could play with the prices by using other model names.
Gijs van Ginkel

 

[Wasabrot]

Wasabrot, post 26,
The answer to your question is a bit of speculation, but I have visited Hartmann a number of times and the company was struggling to stay alive amidst the growing competition of the Japanes binocular industry and with the Porlerim (the companies lowest priced binocular) it tried to get a larger part of the market and the idea was probably that the company could play with the prices by using other model names.
Gijs van Ginkel

Yes this could be a reason. I think Hartmann had an image or marketing problem, they built high end binoculars for their time but selled them too cheap or under other names so that they don't get the appreciation.
For example in the 50's CZJ binoculars have been sold in England much more expensive than Hartmanns, even I guess that the CZJ binoculars could be produced much cheaper due to the higher quantity.
Or another example in a Waffen-Frankonia catalogue from 68/69 I found Berninas and Compacts sold as Frankonia binoculars. Not cheap (280-450 DM) but in the catalogue they wrote about the Frankonia 8x60 it is the bestseller under the night glasses. The picture showed clearly a Bernina. So would somebody buy, who was satisfied with his Frankonia "Bernina", again a Frankonia (which could then be any other manufacturer) or a Hartmann?

Imagine which possibilities a small company like Hartmann would have today with of online marketing and social media.