Ansco was the name of a photographic company based in
Binghamton, New YorkBinghamton is a city located in the Southern Tier of New York in the United States. "The Parlor City" and the "Home of the Square Deal," it is the county seat of Broome County and the principal city and cultural center of the Greater Binghamton region...
, which produced inexpensive
camerathumb |right|Cameras from Large to Small, Film to Digital A camera is a device that records images, either as a still photograph or as moving images known as videos or movies...
s for most of the 20th century. It also sold rebadged versions of cameras made by other manufacturers, including Agfa,
Chinonwas a Japanese camera manufacturer. Kodak took a majority stake in the company in 1997, and made it a fully-owned subsidiary of Kodak Japan, , in 2004 . As a subsidiary, it continues to develop digital camera models....
, and a
MinoltaMinolta Co., Ltd. was a Japanese worldwide manufacturer of cameras, camera accessories, photocopiers, fax machines, and laser printers. Minolta was founded in Osaka, Japan, in 1928 as Nichi-Doku Shashinki Shōten . It is perhaps best-known for making the first integrated autofocus 35 mm SLR...
-built model was the first 35 mm camera in space.
The company was founded in 1842 (pre-dating Kodak in the photography business)as the E. and H.T. Anthony & Co. and became the Anthony & Scoville Co.
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Ansco was the name of a photographic company based in
Binghamton, New YorkBinghamton is a city located in the Southern Tier of New York in the United States. "The Parlor City" and the "Home of the Square Deal," it is the county seat of Broome County and the principal city and cultural center of the Greater Binghamton region...
, which produced inexpensive
camerathumb |right|Cameras from Large to Small, Film to Digital A camera is a device that records images, either as a still photograph or as moving images known as videos or movies...
s for most of the 20th century. It also sold rebadged versions of cameras made by other manufacturers, including Agfa,
Chinonwas a Japanese camera manufacturer. Kodak took a majority stake in the company in 1997, and made it a fully-owned subsidiary of Kodak Japan, , in 2004 . As a subsidiary, it continues to develop digital camera models....
, and a
MinoltaMinolta Co., Ltd. was a Japanese worldwide manufacturer of cameras, camera accessories, photocopiers, fax machines, and laser printers. Minolta was founded in Osaka, Japan, in 1928 as Nichi-Doku Shashinki Shōten . It is perhaps best-known for making the first integrated autofocus 35 mm SLR...
-built model was the first 35 mm camera in space.
History
The company was founded in 1842 (pre-dating Kodak in the photography business)as the E. and H.T. Anthony & Co. and became the Anthony & Scoville Co. in 1901. In 1928 Ansco merged with the
GermanGermany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered to the north by the North Sea, Denmark, and the Baltic Sea; to the east by Poland and the Czech Republic; to the south by Austria and Switzerland; and to the west by France, Luxembourg, Belgium,...
photo company Agfa into a corporation named Agfa-Ansco. Later that year that firm and other German owned chemical firms were merged into a German controlled (by
IG FarbenI.G. Farbenindustrie AG was a German chemical industry conglomerate. Its name is taken from Interessen-Gemeinschaft Farbenindustrie AG . The company was formed in 1925 from a number of major companies that had been working together closely since World War I...
) Swiss based corporation named
Inter-nationale Gesellschaft fur Chemische Unternehmungen AG or IG Chemie, in short. In 1929 the name was changed to
American IG Chemical CorporationAmerican IG is the name of a company, and it owes its genesis to a German business conglomerate, namely, Interessens-Gemeinschaft Farbenindustrie AG, or IG Farben for short...
or American IG, later renamed
General Aniline & FilmGAF Materials Corporation is a company based in Wayne, New Jersey, that has roots dating back to the late 19th century. The GAF acroynym stands for General Aniline & Film. The company has historically been primarily focused on manufacturing of roofing materials for residential and commercial...
and continued to produce cameras under the Agfa-Ansco name. The Agfa-Ansco interests in the U.S. and Binghamton factory was taken over by the US government in 1941 due to its ties with Germany. The company was sold as enemy assets to American interests. It continued to do business after
World War IIWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global military conflict which involved a majority of the world's nations, including all great powers, organized into two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
as Ansco. In 1967 the company was renamed General Aniline & Film (GAF), and a variety of cameras as well as films were sold under this name. The last Ansco cameras were produced in the early 1990s.
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