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View Full Version : Graflex Inc.: Still in business.



BrianShaw
8-Mar-2013, 17:01
... and all this time I thought Graflex was history. Look at what I just came across. I had no idea.

http://www.graflex.com/company-profile.html

Vick Ko
8-Mar-2013, 17:03
Neat

Mark Sawyer
8-Mar-2013, 17:24
The company profile says: "Graflex was incorporated in mid 1993 in the State of Florida and became operationally active in early 1994. The company is a small, woman-owned business..." It may have no relationship to the old Graflex, which went out of business in 1973.

Brian C. Miller
8-Mar-2013, 17:27
Not quite the same company, though: "Graflex was incorporated in mid 1993 in the State of Florida and became operationally active in early 1994."

Added: Ha! We posted over each other. I wish it was the same company. It would be neat if they made view cameras.

BrianShaw
8-Mar-2013, 17:53
Certainly not the same company, but interesting that they picked up the name. What a wise move!

I wonder who will pick up the name "Redskins" once that trademark is dissolved. Ha ha ha.

Bob Salomon
8-Mar-2013, 18:02
When Graflex went out of business some of the assets went to a new company in FL who, among other products, made - or continued to sell - Grafmatic film holders in the early 80's. We know because Linhof was selling these that were purchased from this FL company. But Linhof was plagued by defectives from them, well over 70%. Since Linhof was a German company they were having all kinds of problems with returning the defects and receiving proper credit for them and getting working, non-scratching, Grafmatic holders. So Linhof had us act as the middleman to see if quality would not improve if this new company was doing business through a U.S. corporation that was active in the photo market.
Unfortunately the defectives kept coming and rose to close to 80% and credits became even worse. So Linhof dropped the sale of Graphmatic holders and we stopped doing business with this FL company.

This company did own the rights to the Graflex name. It is possible that this is a successor company to that company. It is also possible that it is an entirely new company that acquired the name. Or just liked it and adapted it.

BarryS
9-Mar-2013, 05:09
I think I'm going to order one of the new 2013 Speed Graphics.

Dan Fromm
9-Mar-2013, 07:14
The successor Bob referred to did business as Graflex/Subsea Corp. I can understand why he didn't say the name. It leaves a very bad taste.

Years ago I bought one of their 2x3 roll holders as NOS. What a piece of crap! 2x3 gate, frame counter dial went from 1 to 8, but the gearing was for 6x7 and the white arrow to line up the start mark on the film wasn't there. Armatos put the right gears in for me, hand drew an arrow. An expensive misadventure.

BrianShaw
9-Mar-2013, 07:46
You shouldn't have, Dan... now I'm tasting it too.

banjo
9-Mar-2013, 14:27
singer sold most of the Graflex tooling & things to Toyo / MAMIYA corp.
Toyo made & sold a Super graphic with there name on it
they made toyomatic a grafmatic
I have also seen a fujimatic
and the MAMIYA RB67 came from graflex RB 2 1/4 x 3 1/4 you can use a graflex
RH 10 roll film holder on it

Bob Salomon
9-Mar-2013, 19:10
singer sold most of the Graflex tooling & things to Toyo / MAMIYA corp.
Toyo made & sold a Super graphic with there name on it
they made toyomatic a grafmatic
I have also seen a fujimatic
and the MAMIYA RB67 came from graflex RB 2 1/4 x 3 1/4 you can use a graflex
RH 10 roll film holder on it

How is a bellows focusing SLR Mamiya RB even remotely close to helical focusing rangefinder camera? Other then the Graflock back system which other companies also used.

John Schneider
10-Mar-2013, 20:29
The successor Bob referred to did business as Graflex/Subsea Corp.

Now that my memory is jogged, I have, somewhere, two big Subsea Mk. 150 U/W strobes that used a single 510V battery. One of them used the Graflex/Subsea name on the mfr. tag.