West-Germany: ROLLEIFLEX: 1970-1982:

Rolleiflex was known for the two eyed SLRs from earlier years, but went into the PP SLR business around 1970. Like other West-German brands at the time, they were struggling with the Japanese domination, and moved the production to Singapore to survive. They took over Voigtländer from the falling Zeiss Ikon in1973, making parallel cameras in two brand names and with two different mounts, the M42 for the first Voigtländer VSL-1 (TM) and the bayonet-mount (BM) for Rolleiflex and later Voigtländer VSL models.Their market share was mimimal. Besides, some mention that the quality control was not good enough. Others deny this. Anyway, Rollei did not make cameras that were interesting enough to the public, and the brand ended in 1982.

Rolleiflex:

-SLR 35: 1970-74: West-Germany
-SLR 35: 1972-76: Singapore
-SLR 350: 1974-76: West-Germany
-SLR 35 M: 1976-79: Singapore
-SLR 35 ME: 1976-79: Singapore
-SLR 35 E: 1976-81: Singapore

Voigtländer under Rollei control, M42 and bayonet mount:

-Ifbaflex: 1974. West-Germany and Singapore. M42. Rebadged VSL 1 for the French market.
-VSL 1 Silver: 1974-76: West-Germany. M42
-VSL 1 Black: 1974-76: Singapore. M42
-VSL 1: 1975-79: Singapore. BM
-VSL 2 Automatic: 1976-79: Singapore. BM
-VSL 3 E: 1977-80: Singapore. BM.

This information is from Jack Dugrew. Google Captain Jack Rollei camera.

In addition to the 35mm SLR and the Rolleiflex TLR cameras, Rollei also made medium format, the Rollei 66, 35mm compact and even some 110 format cameras.

 

Here a SLR 35 made in Singapore in 1978. Sn. 6310595.
A Rollei Planar 50/1,8. Sn. 1278882.
Rewinder, DIN setting and over/under exposure to the left. Then on/off switch and battery control. To the right: shutter time dial around shutter release button. Winder arm, frame counter.

Milan 07.04.2019 09:50

Hi. The Rolleiflex 35 models did not use M42 but the QBM mount, which is identical to the Voigtländer bayonet.
http://www.klassik-cameras.de/RolleiflexSL35.htm

Bosse 08.04.2019 11:30

Hi,
Thank you! You are right, and I have corrected the chapter of Rolleiflex.
However, the first Voigtländer VSL-1, under Rollei control, had M42 mount.

Bosse 28.11.2016 11:29

Thank you. I will bring that into the text. But could you say something more specific? I have read about the falling quality and experienced it myself.

j smith 27.11.2016 17:12

The problem at Rollei was most definitely NOT quality control. It was the arrogance of the management who failed to understand a changing market place.

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Nyeste kommentarer

02.11 | 16:32

Thank you! I should have said around 500000. Also remember that sometimes a top plate was broken and had to replace it with a spare one numbered differently.

01.11 | 20:18

I think your SN indications for the S1 may be a little off. I just picked up a chrome one with SN 527384.

09.08 | 09:58

Hi,
I do not know that model code. Please check for model name.
Regards

08.08 | 20:58

Hi I have a Konica Minolta code 3739740 please advise if there are film strips available for this camera? I'd appreciate the help. Thank you