Monday, June 18, 2012

Butt Film Splicer

Back in the days of 8mm films, you had to be able to splice broken filmstrips.  This was one tool for accomplishing this task:



Mansfield Industries Inc. manufactured motion picture and slide projectors along with other photographic equipment.  They were headquartered in Chicago but had plants in both Spring Grove Minnesota and Tokyo, Japan.  In 1962, they purchased the Argus Cameras Division from Sylvania Electric Products.  Argus was a higher-end producer of motion and slide projectors and at one time produced the highest-selling American-made 35mm camera.  Sylvania had bought Argus in 1957, but decided to sell in order to concentrate on electronics and lighting.  Although Mansfield promised to leave Argus in Ann Arbor, Michigan, within a year they had moved key executives to Chicago, laid off 100 Argus employees, and  finally moved all camera production to Chicago. At some point the firm folded.  There is now an Argus Museum located in a former Argus factor in Ann Arbor.  The city is also home to the Arbor Area Crappy Camera Club, whose members enjoy playing around with junky cameras.

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