One other thing... a company called Heiland was the importer before
Honeywell (who bought them out.) I know this because I owned at one
time a Pentax H-2 that had "Heiland Pentax" on the front of the prism
housing and the old Honeywell logo etched into the face of the prism
housing directly above the nameplate. Sadly, I let it go years ago.
Ed Senior
ClassicVW@xxxxxxx wrote:
I'm getting this info from a book that includes histories of camera
companies....
Asahi Optical co. started in 1919, the same year as Olympus Optical Co.
They had a fine reputation as a lens maker, even making lenses for
Molta (which would become Minolta). In 1952 Asahi made Japan's first
SLR at a time when everyone else made twin lens reflexes,
rangefinders, and folding cameras.
In 1957 they added a pentaprism to their 35mm SLR and called it a
"Pentax". Up until 1977, their SLRs had "Asahi" in small letters over
"PENTAX" in larger letters. The "Asahi" word was deleted after 1977,
leaving just "Pentax". In 1959, Honeywell was signed as the U.S.
distributor, and their cameras had "Honeywell" in small letters in
place of the "Asahi" over "PENTAX". Some cameras were sold in Sears
stores as "Tower 26" or "Tower 29".
In 1976 the company took over its own U.S. distributing, calling the
new U.S. company "Pentax Corp."
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