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Topic: The Keystone Story
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Paul Adsett
Film God
Posts: 5003
From: USA
Registered: Jun 2003
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posted August 28, 2019 02:49 PM
Wow, what a great read Chris, thanks so much for posting this.
As much as being of great interest to us cine fans, I think this is also a wonderful reflection of the state and vibrancy of America's manufacturing base during the 1950's. Here we read of the pride that Keystone had in their home movie products, all designed, manufactured, assembled, and tested by the working people of post war Boston. You can tell that they were very confident about the future of their company and looking forward to being a big pert of an expanding market. And don't those all metal cameras and projectors look wonderful? Just look at all the jobs involved here, all providing these great men and women a means to support a nice house and family in the Boston area. No robots in sight, no computer aided design, all done with pencil and paper on a drafting board.
I'm sure it was the same story at Bell & Howell in Chicago at this time.
Sadly, the Japanese and European manufacturer's were poised to capture the future engineering prizes and much of the world market in the home movie equipment.
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The best of all worlds- 8mm, super 8mm, 9.5mm, and HD Digital Projection,
Elmo GS1200 f1.0 2-blade
Eumig S938 Stereo f1.0 Ektar
Panasonic PT-AE4000U digital pj
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Paul Adsett
Film God
Posts: 5003
From: USA
Registered: Jun 2003
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posted August 29, 2019 09:54 AM
You have to wonder why American companies eventually lost all their expertise, competitive edge, and markets to the Japanese. After all, companies like Bell & Howell were the Rolls Royce of movie equipment at one time. They had to be stste of the art in the 1950's and must have been very well positioned to embrace new technology like magnetic sound, automatic cameras, and the new super 8mm. What happened?
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The best of all worlds- 8mm, super 8mm, 9.5mm, and HD Digital Projection,
Elmo GS1200 f1.0 2-blade
Eumig S938 Stereo f1.0 Ektar
Panasonic PT-AE4000U digital pj
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Tom Photiou
Film God
Posts: 4837
From: Plymouth U.K
Registered: Dec 2003
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posted September 22, 2019 10:47 AM
Paul,
"You have to wonder why American companies eventually lost all their expertise, competitive edge, and markets to the Japanese. After all, companies like Bell & Howell were the Rolls Royce of movie equipment at one time".
It's the same here Paul. It was too easy to send everything abroad to be made as it was cheaper. This country has lost British Steel, (how can they still call it British?), Rolls Royce, the finest car in the world, just to mention two all now gone into over seas hands. I remember in the 80s people use to say that this country will become the toilet cleaners and waiters of Europe, & we'r pretty much there now.
Was there a British Projector manufacturer after all, according to wiki, the inventor of the very first one was British?
This link may be of interest, many of you would have already seen this page.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Movie_projector
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UBBFriend: Email this page to someone!
![[Smile]](smile.gif)
Have seen that brochure before and it is a great piece of history. Good luck with your Keystone K109 and I hope you get it up and running soon.
![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
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