[rollei_list] Schott Glass
- From: Marc James Small <marcsmall@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: rollei_list@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 09 Aug 2010 18:01:10 -0400
At 04:48 PM 8/9/2010, Richard Knoppow wrote:
> Still in business AFAIK, Schott u. Gneissen. At one time
>Abbe and Schott. This is the company that developed the
>first barium glasses that made anastigmat lenses possible. I
>don't know its current ownership but it was part of the
>Zeiss combine for a long time and may still be.
I am surprised by the ignorance of Schott on this
List, as EVERY Rollei TLR camera yet made has
come with Schott glass. Schott is the
heavy-hitter in optical glass, and even Hoya
makes their glasses to fit the needs of the
Schott Catalogue, the industry standard.
The proper firm name is Schott und Genossen, not
"Gneissen". That means, "Schott and
Partners". There are now two divisions,
Schott-Mainz, where most of the optical and
industrial glasses are manufactured, and Jenaer
Glasswerke, the old Schott-Jena works, which
primarily produces consumer glasses. Take a
gander at your Primus camping lantern or your
German coffee-maker -- the globes and carafes are
made by Schott. Those marked Schott were made in
Mainz; those made at the Schott plant in Mexico
City lack the Schott logo. (Schott makes some of
the globes for Coleman lanterns, but most are made by Corning.)
Carl Zeiss founded his optical works in 1846. By
1860, he wanted to convert optical construction
from a world of master opticians making
individual items to order into a proper
industrial enterprise. To that end, he went to
the Department of Physics at the University of
Jena and had a young physicist, Ernst Abbe,
frog-marched, protesting desperately, to help
him. Abbe rethought the scientific basis of lens
design, on which little work had been done since
the death of Fraunhofer, and thus was born modern
lens design. Abbe soon realized the need for
advanced glass formulae, and he, in turn,
recruited Otto Schott to found the Schott und
Genossen glassworks at Jena, using those
wonderful Czech sands as its base material. Thus
was born the magic combination, Zeiss for his
production skills, Abbe for his superlative lens
designs, and Schott for the glasses necessary for the lenses.
When Zeiss died, Abbe decided to remake the firm
into a charitable foundation and got Otto Schott
to support him. They hustled Zeiss's son,
Rudolph, into a generous buy-out and then founded
the Zeiss Stiftung, a parent foundation dedicated
to the furtherance of the German optical
industry. The Stiftung has dual offices at Jena
and Heidenheim; it owns the Zeiss optical works
(Jena and Oberkochen), the Schott glassworks
(Mainz and Jena), Zeiss-Winkel, Hensoldt
(binoculars), Albert Gauthier (which has absorbed
FW Deckel -- they produce Prontor and Deckel
shutters), and even a wooden woodworking tool
company named Leitz, of all things. There is
still a small part of Zeiss Ikon in business, producing slide projectors.
The Schott Catalogue has been the industry
standard since the 1930's, and all manufacturers
fit their wares into its confines for regular
production. In the 1980's, Schott hired Hoya to
produce under license the more mundane Schott
glasses but the more exotic blends still come
from Mainz. Every Zeiss lens since 1880 and
every Scheinder lens ever made has been made from
Schott glasses. But, why not? Schott is the best.
I had some coddled eggs the other
day. Naturlich, I used eine Jenaer Glasswerke
eierkoch. But, again, why not? Why settle for second best?
The entire history is terribly complex: Zeiss
planned a three-volume history of the Foundation
but only got as far as volume one, and the
two-volume history of Hensoldt also stalled at volume one.
But, Richard, whenever you take a shot with your
Rolleiflex TLR, just give a brief acknowledge to
Schott und Genossen, who made every bit of glass in the camera.
Marc
msmall@xxxxxxxxxxxx
Cha robh bàs fir gun ghràs fir!
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