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A Little Hasselblad History
from Wikipedia
The company was established in 1841 in Gothenburg, Sweden as a
trading company, F. W. Hasselblad and Co. The founder's son, Arvid
Viktor Hasselblad, was interested in photography and started the
photographic division of the company. Hasselblad's corporate
website quotes him as saying I certainly don’t think that
we will earn much money on this, but at least it will allow us to
take pictures for free.
In 1877, Arvid Hasselblad commissioned the construction of
Hasselblad's long-time headquarters building, in use until 2002.
While on honeymoon, Arvid Hasselblad met George Eastman, founder of
Eastman Kodak. In 1888, Hasselblad became the sole Swedish
distributor of Eastman's products. The business was so successful
that in 1908, the photographic operations were spun off into their
own corporation, Fotografiska AB. Operations included a nationwide
network of retail stores and photo labs. Management of the company
eventually passed to Karl Erik Hasselblad, Arvid's son (grandson of
founder F. W.). Karl Erik wanted his son, Victor Hasselblad, to have
a wide understanding of the camera business, and sent him to
Dresden, Germany at the age of 18 (circa 1924), then the world
center of the optics industry.
Victor spent the next several years studying and working in
various photography related endeavors in Europe and the United
States, including spending time in Rochester, New York with George
Eastman, before returning home to begin work at the family business.
Due to disputes within the family, particularly with his father,
Victor he left the business and in 1937 started his own photo store
and lab in Gothenburg, Victor Foto.
World War II
During World War II, the Swedish military captured a fully
functioning German aerial surveillance camera from a downed German
plane. This was probably a Handkammer HK 12.5 / 7x9, which bore the
codename GXN.
The Swedish government realized the strategic advantage of
developing an aerial camera for their own use, and in the spring of
1940 approached Victor Hasselblad to help create one. In April of
1940, Victor Hasselblad established a camera workshop in Gothenburg
called Ross AB in a shed at an automobile shop near a junkyard and
working in the evenings in cooperation with an auto mechanic from
the shop and his brother, began to design the HK7 camera.
By late 1941, the operation had over twenty employees and the
Swedish Air Force asked for another camera, one which would have a
larger negative and could be permanently mounted to an aircraft;
this model was known as the SKa4. Between 1941 and 1945, Hasselblad
delivered 342 cameras to the Swedish military.
In 1942, Karl Erik Hasselblad died and Victor took control of the
family business. During the war, in addition to the military
cameras, Hasselblad produced watch and clock parts, over 95,000 by
the war's end.
Post-war
After the war, watch and clock production continued, and other
machine work was also carried out, including producing a slide
projector and supplying parts for Saab automobiles.
Victor Hasselblad's real ambition, though, was to make high
quality civilian cameras. In 1945-1946, the first design drawings
and wooden models were made for a camera to be called the Rossex. An
internal design competition was held for elements of the camera; one
of the winners was Sixton Sason, the designer of the original Saab
bodywork.
In 1948, the camera later known as the 1600F was released. The
new design was very complex, and many small improvements were needed
to create a reliable product; the watchmaking background of many of
the designers produced a design which was sophisticated, but more
delicate than what was required for a camera. Only around 50 units
were produced in 1949, and perhaps 220 in 1950, of what collectors
have come to designate the Series One camera. The Series Two
versions of the 1600F, perhaps as many as 3300 made from 1950 to
1953, were more reliable but still subject to frequent repairs, with
many units having been cannibalized or modified by the factory.
In 1953, a much-improved camera, the 1000F was released. In 1954,
they took the 1000F design and mated it to the groundbreaking new
38mm Biogon lens designed by Dr. Bertele of Zeiss to produce the SWA
(Supreme Wide Angle, later changed to Super Wide Angle). Though a
specialty product not intended to sell in large numbers, the SWA was
an impressive achievement, and derivatives were sold for decades.
Hasselblad took their two products to the 1954 Photokina trade show
in Germany, and word began to spread.
In December of 1954, the 1000F camera received a rave review from
the influential American photography magazine, Modern Photography.
They put over 500 rolls of film through their test unit, and
intentionally dropped it twice, and it continued to function.
The Hasselblad camera comes into
its own
1957 was the real turning point for the company. The 1000F was
replaced by the 500C. The landmark 500C design formed the basis for
Hasselblad's product line for the next forty years, with variants
still being produced in small quantities in 2008. It was not until
1960, though, that Hasselblad's cameras became profitable; prior to
this point, the company was still being entirely supported by sales
of imported photographic supplies, including their distribution of
Kodak products.
In 1962, NASA began to use Hasselblad cameras on space flights,
and to request design modifications. The first motor-driven camera,
the 500EL, appeared in 1965 as
a result of NASA requests. While Hasselblad had enjoyed a slowly but
steadily growing reputation among professional photographers through
the 1950s, the publicity created by NASA's use of Hasselblad
products dramatically increased name recognition for the brand.
In 1966, with the increasing success of the camera division,
Hasselblad exited the photographic supply and retailing industry,
selling Hasselblad Fotografiska AB to Kodak.
1970s onward
In 1976, Victor Hasselblad sold Hasselblad AB to a Swedish
investment company, Säfveån AB. When he died in 1978, he left much
of his fortune to the Hasselblad Foundation.
In 1977, the 2000 series of focal plane shutter equipped models
were introduced. This was the last major technical development in
the course of the classic (now known as "V-System", after
Victor) Hasselblad camera.
In 1984, Victor Hasselblad AB went public, with 42.5% of the
company being sold on the Swedish stock exchange. The next year,
Swedish corporation Incentive AB bought 58.1% of Hasselblad, and in
1991, they acquired the remainder of the shares, taking VHAB back to
being a private corporation.
In 1985 Hasselblad established the subsidiary, Hasselblad
Electronic Imaging AB, to focus on digital imaging and transmission
systems.
In 1996, Hasselblad was sold, with the new owners being UBS,
CINVen, and the Hasselblad management.
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