Calumet is done for good

[BrianShaw]

Bummer...use to be a regular customer. Their catalog was the best. Wish I still had one but I'd probably just cry all over it

Ditto. I'm sure I still have a catalogue or two. I'd mail you one but the tear stains might make it difficult to read.

[Bob Salomon]

I thought they died a long time ago...

They did, C&A marketing, the company that bought Ritz out of their bankruptcy assets also bought Calumet out of their bankruptcy assets. C&A has been closing down stores like the Camera World and Calumet stores recently.

[IanG]

Calumet is alive and thriving as is Cambo, the US side may have gone but in Europe there's been no changes and they were never in difficulties. They are still the largest UK Pro dealer with quite a few stores here as well as in Gernany, Holland, Ireland etc and the Cambo - Calumet link is still there.

Ironically while Calumet were declining in the US they consolidated in Europe merging with competitors.

Ian

[Oren Grad]

Calumet is alive and thriving as is Cambo, the US side may have gone but in Europe there's been no changes and they were never in difficulties. They are still the largest UK Pro dealer with quite a few stores here as well as in Gernany, Holland, Ireland etc and the Cambo - Calumet link is still there.

Ironically while Calumet were declining in the US they consolidated in Europe merging with competitors.

Before they lost their way, what made Calumet special for our purposes was that they continued to serve the large format market, including providing service and maintaining stocks of parts for many large format cameras long discontinued. Does Calumet in the UK have that, or have they become just another digital camera retailer? I've looked at calphoto.co.uk, and other than the apparent ability to special-order anything from the current Cambo catalog, I don't see much evidence.

BTW, I'm not arguing that Calumet in Europe has made the wrong business decision by going with the flow, if that is indeed the case; just underlining what's been lost.

[Kirk Gittings]

But 4 years ago, I could bike 2 miles and buy NOS C1 parts. And any film I wanted from the huge fridge. Then Helix went, then...

I gotta get to Central Camera this week!

ditto, but this summer!

[IanG]

Before they lost their way, what made Calumet special for our purposes was that they continued to serve the large format market, including providing service and maintaining stocks of parts for many large format cameras long discontinued. Does Calumet in the UK have that, or have they become just another digital camera retailer? I've looked at calphoto.co.uk, and other than the apparent ability to special-order anything from the current Cambo catalog, I don't see much evidence.

BTW, I'm not arguing that Calumet in Europe has made the wrong business decision by going with the flow, if that is indeed the case; just underlining what's been lost.

Calumet have a film and darkroom side including LF film. As for LF equipment that's always been a smaller market here in the UK and they specialise in Cambo LF camerasas you'd expect because of the ownership links.

There was no tradition of amateur/hobbyist photographers in the UK and Europe (after WWII) shooting LF until probably the late 1990s and the appearance of a lot of second had LF equipment on Ebay and on dealers shelves. Consequently it was proportionally a much smaller market, we did have a handful of independent retailers who specialised in LF but they've moved more towards digital.

Ian

[Drew Wiley]

They were nice for studio supplies, and at one point were a convenient local option for large format film too. Overall they just didn't play their cards right. If you
give up your specialty niche and just offer what everyone else does, then there is no other card to play than price, which they didn't understand either. Then when they dropped the ball on Zone VI, that was another red flag that whoever was in charge didn't understand the importance of offering something unique, then backing it in the long haul. If you just want to provide a digital studio presence, well, that's an extremely competitive game because it crosses over into electronics distribution. B&H was far better than them at that. And Freestyle was getting their game plan worked out when it came to traditional film and paper. But all that business strategy mentality is something hard to pass on to the next generation, though I'm attempting to do it myself, at least in those moments I'm not slobbering over topographic maps of places I still want to get to before my 70's.

[Jason Greenberg Motamedi]

I notice a number of "Calumet" branded made-in-China film holders on eBay. Did someone buy the name or just pirate it?

[Bruce Barlow]

They were nice for studio supplies, and at one point were a convenient local option for large format film too. Overall they just didn't play their cards right. If you
give up your specialty niche and just offer what everyone else does, then there is no other card to play than price, which they didn't understand either. Then when they dropped the ball on Zone VI, that was another red flag that whoever was in charge didn't understand the importance of offering something unique, then backing it in the long haul. If you just want to provide a digital studio presence, well, that's an extremely competitive game because it crosses over into electronics distribution. B&H was far better than them at that. And Freestyle was getting their game plan worked out when it came to traditional film and paper. But all that business strategy mentality is something hard to pass on to the next generation, though I'm attempting to do it myself, at least in those moments I'm not slobbering over topographic maps of places I still want to get to before my 70's.

I remember meeting with Calumet executives after I left Zone VI. Fred Picker used to refer to such people as "Maximum printable density." You're right, they didn't get it. Others believe that they bought Zone VI just to get the mailing list, and were never really interested in the niche Fred had, in fact, created in the early 80s. Too bad. It is interesting, though, to contemplate whether Zone VI would still be alive today.

[john borrelli]

They had a nice store in Cambridge Mass. I liked their rebadged Rodenstock products. Their rebadged loupes were a great deal for example.

Maybe the company thought they needed to be giant to compete but I think their strength was in the community qualities they had, buying and selling used equipment, offering photo seminars, the bulletin boards and free photo handouts, as well as, having a local sales staff that seemed to be into photography.