C. A. Steinheil S?hne Optical and Astronomical Works was a German optical company based in Munich (München), Bavaria. It made optical equipment and camera lenses from the 19th century until at least the 1970s.
he company was founded in 1855[1] by Carl August von Steinheil (1801-1870), a German physicist and astronomer. At the time of founding, the organization was known as the Steinheil Optical Institute.
he company made many of the astronomical telescopes for German observatories include those at Upsala, Mannheim, Leipzig, and Utrecht.[2] Carl's son Hugo Adolph Steinheil (1832-1893) bought out father's interest in the Institute, renamed it to C.
A. Steinheil S?hne and continued as owner of the company after his father's death in 1870.[3]
In 1866 it invented the Aplanat lens. In 1890, Adolph's son, Rudolph Steinheil (1865-1930), joined the family business, eventually become owner in 1892. During the early years, the company referred to itself as C. A. Steinheil S?hne but was commonly known simply as Steinheil. In the 1930s, Steinheil became a stock company and was jointly owned by Rudolph Steinheil's five daughters.
Steinheil made a few cameras at various times, and during the late 1940s, it developed an advanced 35mm camera with interchangeable lenses, the Casca.
On 24 Oct, 1952 C.A. Steinheil filed for a United States trademark on the word Steinheil. The trademark registration was granted on 23 March, 1954. At the time of filing L. F. Von Hornstein was listed as the Director of the company and the address was listed as St. Martinstrasse 76, Munich 8, Germany. The company name on trademark filings in the 1950s was shown as Optische Werke C. A. Steinheil Sohne GmbH. The trademark application states that the name Steinheil was first used in commerce in 1884.[4]
During the early 1960s, Steinheil lenses were distributed in the United States by Ponder & Best. In 1962 The Elgeet Optical Company, a large, Rochester, NY based American lens manufacturer, acquired ownership of Steinheil through a purchase of 80% of the company's stock for $560,000 USD.[5][6]
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Two years later, in 1964, Elgeet sold Steinheil to Lear Siegler, Inc, an American aviation conglomerate. The company became a subsidiary known as Steinheil-Lear Siegler and primarily developed optics for aviation applications such as gun sights and navigation instruments. In the late 1980s Steinheil-Lear Siegler was sold to British Aerospace for ￡17 million.[7] The company was again renamed, this time to Steinheil Optronic. In 1995, British Aerospace dissolved Steinheil and sold off bits and pieces of the subsidiary to various companies. Tank site manufacturing was sold to STN Atlas Elektronik in 1995[8]; pump and actuator manufacturing was sold to an investor group[9]; gyroscope manufacturing to German company, Autoflug; some of the optical manufacturing and trademarks were acquired by Jenoptik AG.[10] The Steinheil trademark itself expired on 26 December 1994 and was not renewed.
