End of an era II: Fujifilm Europe BW Factory liquidated

I just, by accident, also noticed this already year old article in the petapixel site.

The Fujifilm made lots of film (and cameras), which I also used quite a lot and have also in this site still for sale. They (Fujifilm UK) also made one of best pre-press flatbed (film etc.) scanners ever made, the Fuji Lanovia C-550, which I have 2 + 1 (Agfa XY-15, same hardware but with Agfa’s software, but runs also with Fuji’s software, as I have done).

I do wonder, if Fujifilm has had the entire factory to sleep nine years(!) of the sleep of the Sleeping Beauty, how big a company we do have here that really in modern times has the resources to do this? They had the factory as a backup plant, just in case the film market would stood up again.

But nope, it didn’t and hence the factory went sold into pieces (now its only bits, I suppose). 🙁 You can’t find any photos of the auction house any more, but there are still the bidding listings and information in PDFs for Bulk storage, Gelatin­ and emulsion production­ installation & various machines and the payment details, which give you an idea of the diversity and magnitude of the machines (and their opening bidding prices!!) what a large scale factory would need.

I am so sad I was not there, at the factory on 6. 2. 2015 to check out what is was like in there with my own bad eyes. As I see the images in the article mentioned above, it looks like a dairy plant to me (I’ve been looking at the ice cream plants recently..) :-/

I might NOT have bid on every item, not for a single one, as a matter of fact. The starting bid prices where so high to my understanding that even the first bid might have won you the item. Surely this was a bitter end to Fujifilm, which might not have made enough ca$h, no sorry €uros, no sorry ¥ens to cover the high costs of the investments and European salaries?

Some of these films are surely to have been created in that factory:

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