Wünsche

Mars Camera 1893 image by Ron (Netherlands) (Image rights)

In the year 1887 Emil Wünsche (born 1864, died 1902) founded a shop for photographic articles in Dresden. Some cameras sold in the shop were rebadged cameras of Hüttig. Other products of the shop were produced by small companies in Dresden, at camera maker Paul Förster, at the maker of cameras and photography goods Louis Lang, and at the package maker Dienwiebel&Co. . In 1894/95 Wünsche bought all these three companies. In 1896 the Emil Wünsche company moved into its new factory building in Reick near Dresden. 1898 the company became the Emil Wünsche Aktiengesellschaft für photographische Industrie Reick (Emil Wünsche AG). In 1902 Louis Lang became CEO after Emil Wünsche had committed suicide for personal reasons. The company made many of the camera types which were en vogue for rollfilm, sheet film and plates. A lot of accessories and other photographical goods were also made there: tripods, film, plate holders, darkroom equipment, enlargers, image finishing apparatuses and photo albums. It even made flashlamps like the Electra. For many of its cameras it made own lenses, viewfinders and shutters.

It was also distributor of lenses of the companies Steinheil, Voigtländer and Goerz, as well as vendor of shutters of Bausch & Lomb and Goerz.

Cameras

• Detective camera Mars-Kamera
  • other magazine cameras: Nero, Legion, Juwel, Kobold
• Falling-plate magazine (or perhaps simple box) camera Mars 99
• Bosco box and folding cameras for rollfilm, including the SLR "Bosco-Reflex"
• Nymphe rollfilm strut folder

(Image rights)

• Victrix strut-folding plate camera with focal-plane shutter
• mirror camera Ada
• Reflex camera Reicka
• Detectiv-Camera "Photo-Jumelle"
• Favorit plate folders
  • Favorit V bicyclist's camera
• Schüler-Apparat (student's apparatus, beginner's view camera)
• Reise-Cameras "Furror", Excelsior", "Meteor", "Sirius", "Eureka"
• Box cameras "Lilli", "Sport II", "Tuck", "Bosko 98"
• Juwel-Klapp-Camera plate folder
• Gnom
• Hesekiel'sche Spiegel-Reflex-Camera
• Vest pocket camera "Piccolo"
• Matador
• Reick
• Briefmarken-Camera (with 12 lenses for 12 miniature portraits on 9x12cm plates)

and lots of plate and rollfilm cameras, so many different types that the company had to associate with other camera makers in the merger that yielded ICA in 1909.

Enlargers

• Simplex

factory in Reick-Dresden in 1898

sales store office and woodwork machine room

carpenters' workshop and mechanicians' workshop

mechanicians' workshop and steam engine hall

The factory

In 1896 the company moved to its new factory building in Reick. This was a courageous step since Reick near Dresden didn't have neither a railway station nor a tramway station. Both facilities were expected for the next future. The huge main building was built around a yard. In the yard was the machine house for the steam engine, with a chimney as high as 35m. Four dwelling houses, two for white-collar and two for blue-collar staff were built next to the building. A big building was the horse barn and horse cart garage behind the main building. In 1898 the company had 206 workers and 33 officers. 27 families lived in the company's dwelling houses, each with a piece of the houses' gardens.

In 1898 a fire destroyed lots of the factory building. It was reconstructed until mid 1899. It was built bigger than before. And the number of employed workers rose to 350 until 1902, making the Emil Wünsche AG the second biggest camera maker in Dresden.

Sources

• Blumtritt, Herbert: Geschichte der Dresdner Fotoinustrie. Stuttgart 2000
• Der Lichtbildkünstler, monthly photography magazine of Emil Wünsche AG

Links

• Cameras at www.collection-appareils.fr