Some Interesting Intellectual Property on Film Holders

[mat4226]

Browsing the auction sites this morning and came across this piece of large format intellectual property:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/301654731206...%3AMEBIDX%3AIT

For anybody out there looking to keep designing film holders, this could be useful, but maybe not $4500 useful?

[Sal Santamaura]

...this could be useful, but maybe not $4500 useful?

That price might be appropriate for the molds (if not worn out), but I'm not sure drawings add much to what one finds in available ANSI standards for those film sizes.

[Jac@stafford.net]

What Sal said. The ANSI documents are less expensive. In this age, a correct CAD file might be useful.

[Drew Wiley]

The whole trick is buying the right materials in appropriate volume. Machining them is much easier nowadays. And there are more materials options. Molds are a bit costly, but no big deal. But market? I think it's there to a limited extent, if someone was willing to make this a labor of love. But don't expect to get rich, if you even manage to break even.

[koh303]

That price might be appropriate for the molds (if not worn out), but I'm not sure drawings add much to what one finds in available ANSI standards for those film sizes.

Most of not all of the tooling of fidelity/lisco is long gone and in a dumpster somwhere if not already reclaimed.
This lot has been up for sale for the past 2-3 years, up and off, and also long before the calumet bankruptcy. Unfortunately, it is not complete, and the info in it is only useful if someone was to set up a whole new factory and tooling for film holders, and even then so much research would need to be done.

Its a cool collectors item more then anything...

SAL - the Ansi documents available online are nowhere near the actual size of a fidelity/lisco film holder. The ANSI might be "correct" but the film holders work, and if anyone wanted to make something usable, the ANSI would not be anything more then a starting point...

[Drew Wiley]

It would be a no-brainer problem to any machinist trained in these materials. One could simply dissect an extant holder and measure the specs. Or one could redesign something even better.

[koh303]

It would be a no-brainer problem to any machinist trained in these materials. One could simply dissect an extant holder and measure the specs. Or one could redesign something even better.

+1

[Drew Bedo]

What about 3-D printing the parts at home? I see and read where things are first scanned , then printed. Could a film holder be disassembled, then the parts scanned and printed?

[koh303]

It could, but i have not yet seen a 3d printed or grown product with that level of exactness and tolerance which will suit a film holder.

[jp]

It might be intellectual property, but it's probably not the business right to make exactly what they did. Sorta like building and selling Shelby Cobra car clones based on a box of papers you bought on the Internet.
IANAL, but if you wanted to get into the film holder business, you might be safer legally NOT having this. Patents expired helps.