This is sad. My first Rollei as given to me in 1972 by John Poole of Oakesdale
Photography in California. A fine teacher. Now the plant will be gone at the
same time I am selling my minty Chocolate FX. I still have an old Rollei. Just
seem to not have time or maybe ambition to get out take as many images as I
used to go after.
R.I.P. Gone but not forgotten
On Apr 20, 2015, at 6:22 PM, CarlosMFreaza <cmfreaza@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
It's very sad indeed Dirk. The Rollei factory marked a continuity from 1920
up to 2015 for high quality fine mechanics products, beyond the company
owners. Rollei -as we knew it- no longer exists without the factory in
Braunschweig. I don't know if I was to buy a brand new Rollei TLR some day,
however the factory was there if I needed it.
As Rollei user, I only wanted to thank Rollei workers, technicians, engineers
and designers for so good products manufactured along 95 years.
Carlos
2015-04-20 17:09 GMT-03:00 <Dirk-Roger.Schmitt@xxxxxx>:
Unfortunately,
I have very bad news.
The Insolvency Sale starts on Tuesday.
http://www.proventura.de//insolvenzversteigerung-des-kameraherstellers-dhw-fototechnik-gmbh-ehem.-franke--heidecke-gmbh-salzdahlumer-str.-196-38126-braunschweig-finale-liste-online/auction/2669/bildkatalog/seite/19/#bildkatalog
I had a visit today at the factory. EVERYTHING is sold by Tuesday in an
auction. There were a lot of visitors from all over Europe, from Cyprus to
Lithuania, a lot of Rollei enthusiasts.
The auction on Tuesday will blow up the tears. But there is no alternative.
I met at the factory the former R&D Head of Rollei Fototechnic, and we had a
joint tour.
We saw the drilling and grinding workshop, the optical assembly lines and
final testing lines. All looked as they were left yesterday. A lot of partly
assembled HY6 and TLR could be seen on the assembly lines.
We went to the LARGE cellar of Rollei, like catacombs. There are plenty of
rooms which have never visited for the last 30 years! They are full of
single lenses, lense blankets, parts for TLR, test equipment and so on.
The collection of the last - at least - 30 years which nobody used anymore.
We visited the shelter, under in the cellar, which was built during WWII.
It is also full of old stuff. All is going out by tomorrow, and for a lot
of valuable items nobody will take care about. They all will be go to trash.
Personally, I will try to bid for an autocollimator. They still have plenty
of them. They have been built in the 1960s in batches of hundreds by Rollei
directly. They are going out for 50 Euros.
IT IS VERY SAD!
I hoped, there would be somebody found who would take all items in a batch
to continue, but this did not happen.
I take numerous of photos which I will display later on.
Best regards, and God bless some people from former DHW which still want to
continue.
Regards
Dirk
Dirk-Roger Schmitt
