Sears

Tower 120 Flash

Sears is the most famous mail order house in the world since its Chicago building Sears Tower was the highest in the world for a certain period. In the U.S.A. it was the greatest mail-order an retail vendor of consumer goods. It was founded by Richard W. Sears in 1886. It started as reseller of watches in North Redwood, Minnesota. In 1887 Sears moved to Chicago and employed Alvah C. Roebuck as watch- and toolmaker. In 1893 Roebuck became partner in the company which then was renamed Sears, Roebuck & Co.. Like other great mail-order houses Sears had a house-brand for cameras, the Tower cameras which were all OEM products, made by different renowned camera makers of several countries.

Distributed cameras

original camera	sold as
Olympus Ace-E	Tower 19
Asahiflex IIB	Tower 23
Braun Paxette Reflex	Tower 33 Reflex
Toyoca-44	Tower 44
Halma 44	Tower 44B
Iloca Rapid	Tower 50
Iloca Rapid B	Tower 51
Iloca Rapid IIL	Tower 52
Ising Pucky I	Tower 120 Flash
Busch 4x5 Pressman	Tower 4x5 Pressman
Ricoh 126 C Automatic	Sears Easi-Load FC 600
Mamiya ???	Tower Automatic 35
Nicca III	Tower Type 3
Ansco Marvel S-20	???
Reflecta	Trumpfreflex

Several Tower cameras were also made by Bilora. Sears lenses for SLRs were made by Ricoh. Conley was a partner of Sears & Roebuck. In 1924 Conley was owned by Sears, and bought Seneca. But the Seneca brand disappeared in 1926. In 1980 Sears, Roebuck and Co. was restructured and rebranded to Sears Merchandise Group.