Sinar history

[Robert H]

Carl Hans Koch created the first Sinar camera in 1947 and released the first production model a year later.
As I have a strong personal interest in his company and it's products I thought this might be the place to learn more about them as the internet currently has a limited amount of information.
Would therefore appreciate any relevant contributing information on the early years of this company (now in the hands of Leica) by the members here.
As a starting point I would also like to ask those owning early examples to supply the date of manufacture of their cameras, plus any interesting or possibly unique features and/or details. The two digit number stamped underneath the lower horizontal standard on the Norma models will indicate the year of production. Thanks to all for your participation.

A brief history: http://prezi.com/poih-q713vtp/history-of-sinar-camera/

[Robert H]

An interesting note from C. Koch (Jr.) on a previous post (21-Jul-2011):



"Dear Grant,

My grandfather thought of a way to escape the negative sides of being a provincial allround photographer in the inherited studio, run by his widowed mother. During WWII, where he served in the Swiss air force as a captain in a radio division, he realized the shortcomings of the leading (Linhof-) view cameras for tasks in the studio, industry, nature, architecture and reproduction (thus the acronym "Sinar") mostly by not being modular enough.

In 1948 he had the first prototype made at an advanced camera repair shop whom he had given technical drawings made by his brother in law. He liked it a lot, changed it a bit and immediately ordered 5 more to show to his fellow professionals in the Swiss professinal photographers' association of which he was also president for a while.

They liked the ideas in the new design a lot. Linhof's engineers were less excited and were not interested in purchasing the idea and sent him home with words such as "if this idea was any good, it would have been invented at Linhof already". Needless to say that some of his new ideas appeared in Linhof cameras anyway...

Supported by his wife, he decided to start to market the cameras by himself. The camera repair and manufacturing company seemed to be the right bet and a not so waterproof contract was made with the owner of it. As the sales increased to never imagined levels, the transfer prices were not adjusted to reflect the economies of scale. Also, the success led to greed by the supplier and Oswald realized, that his sons, who did not sign the contract, could not be stopped legally to jump on the bandwagon and sell such cameras in competition to their main customer. When trouble started to strike the view camera industry in the 1990ies, Arca moved from Zurich to France, probably to reduce cost. They managed to keep the company to a minimum size and within the family.

All the Sinar drawings were still in Feuerthalen in the basement, in the former factory building, where Jenoptik, who bought the company off our family, left them. However they might not all get moved to Zurich, where a pro photo dealer has become the new owner of the brand.

All the best

Carl"

[Robert H]

A young Carl Koch (on the left) demonstrating his new creation (circa 1948).

[Robert H]

Graphically sophisticated Sinar advertising campaign from the early 1960's by the Gerstner & Kutter design agency.

Sinar was later to adopt their Helvetica style logo due to this promotion.

[Emmanuel BIGLER]

The name of the subcontractor working for Herr Koch at the beginning is : Alfred Oschwald (not Oswald).
The Sinar Norma bears both names : Koch for the system and Oschwald for the actual manufacturer.

In the following document, however,
http://prezi.com/poih-q713vtp/history-of-sinar-camera/
there is no mis-spelling ...
... since the name "Oschwald" is never mentioned

[Robert H]

You are of course correct Mr.Bigler, the spelling is indeed Oschwald.
I was quoting directly although I was aware of this. Thank you for the correction.

[Robert H]

"An interesting, but little known fact - both the original ARCA-SWISS monorail and the Sinar Norma were designed by members of the same family. The company that designed both was called Alfred Oschwald & Co. The owner's son Alfred Oschwald, Jr. designed the original ARCA-SWISS monorail. And the father, Alfred Oschwald Sr. and his other son Max Oschwald, at the request of Karl Koch, did the design work for the Sinar Norma and the original Sinar behind the lens shutter.

So, it's not just coincidence that these two classic Swiss monorails share many desirable attributes - and continue to be usable over 50 years after they were originally designed. Clever guys those Oschwalds."

Kerry Thalmann
Really Big Cameras

The above is a direct quote but it seems Carl Koch was in fact the designer of the Sinar and Alfred Oschwald & Co. the manufacturer.

[Emmanuel BIGLER]

"his sons, who did not sign the contract, could not be stopped legally"

And this started a very long controversy between both companies.
The irony of the story is that one of Alfred Oschwald's sons bears the same first name : Alfred.
But he was not bound to the Koch family and to the Sinar company by his father's contract regarding non-concurrence.
Formally, Alfred Oschwald senior never developed any competing product and never infringed the contract ... neither did his two sons Alfred junior and Max, since they were not at all involved in the contract. You know the rest.

Very nice example of small European family-owned businesses who dare to go to a worldwide market with top-class products, even if they are actually very small companies. At least at the beginning for Sinar which became a big company afterwards.
Germany and Switzerland have many examples of successful small family-owned manufacturing businesses with a world-wide market. And who, often, do not want to grow and insist on being a family-owned enterprise on the long term.

Another aspect in successful family-owned companies in Germany and Switzerland is the involvement of the father founder and the family in the products. This does not guarantee that the company will never fail, but the spirit of many of those family businesses is that the family does not only care for the profit they can make, they actually care for their products on a technical basis, not only financial.
One of my French friends who is a professional carpenter and a passionate LF photographer recently visited a family-owned company in Germany, one of the European leaders in professional electric tools for carpentry. When visiting the workshop were the products are manufactured, the person in charge of the visit told to my friend : see this old man dressed like a worker, near this machine in operation ? This is our big boss. He often comes here to see what is going and and discusses with us on the improvements of the products and the processes.

[Drew Wiley]

I do a big chunk of my tool business with German and Swiss mfg. But their interest in profit is keen. They just have a different way of looking at it than the fastbuck
cheap product mentality of the US stock market - more of a success in the long haul rather than smoke and mirrors every quarter. And since there's is such a big
vacuum for quality in this country, both these particular mfg and myself have all the business we can handle. Just between each of these "clear the mind" posts that
I make during the day I turn thousands of dollars worth of goods, often in mere minutes. Quality is very much in demand. What is lacking is distributors who realize
that rather than just following the usual batch of lemming MBA's and CEO's right off the same ridiculous cliff that has already ruined one company after another.
The demand for Sinar might finally be slowing down some, but they've had one helluva run.

[Robert H]

Yes Mr. Bigler, these small European family owned companies have produced some wonderful products, often setting a world standard for their quality. The current efforts by Mr.Vogt and his wife and son at Arca Swiss are a good example: aesthetically gorgeous and technically perfect designs !