3 replies to this topic

[Ken]

I am searching for magazine articles, reviews and advertisements on Edmund Scientific Co. telescopes, mainly the red tube Newtonians from 1976 through the early eighties. I have tried archive searches for Sky and Telescope and index searches for Astronomy magazine with little success. If anyone can provide either issue information to help in ordering back issues from either magazine, or who can scan articles and ads I would be appreciative. I am doing research for a classic scopes article on the Red Tube Edmund's. (Excluding the Astroscan.)

I am also interested in Edmund Scientific Company catalogs from this same era. Scans of the relative pages here would also be appreciated.

Feel free to respond to me off list, unless you feel any information might be of interest to the group. Thanks in advance.

Ken Shephard
hdknight1@yahoo.com
39 20'N 78 01'W

1977 Edmund Scientific Co 6" f6 Newt
1994 Meade 2045D SCT
2002 Questar 3.5 Std. Pyrex/BB

[asaint]

Ken,

This is going to sound like a silly question - but here goes; Have you contacted Edmund to see if they have copies of these old articles lying around? If not, and you hesitate to do so, I'm willing to help out and give them a call and see what I can dig up.


Allister

[Ken]

Allister,

Yes, have done so, Scientifics, which is the hobby and kit company in NY that bought the retail branch does not have any historical information. Not surprising considering the nature of the purchase and the ensuing legal issues over copyrights, the RKE etc. I am waiting for a response back from Edmund Industrial Optics, the true physical succesor to Edmund Scientific. I have not been to Barrington NJ in 20 years and am unsure if there is any longer an actual physical presence there, but will robably drive through ther next time I go to New Hope for a Q-fest or such.

Some details on the sale,
Four years after putting Edmund Scientific on the selling block, Edmund Optics has sold the $10 million science hobbyists catalog to Science Kit & Boreal Laboratories (SK), a division of $1.46 billion laboratory supplies cataloger VWR Scientific Products. Terms were not disclosed.

The $48 million Barrington, NJ-based Edmund Optics is retaining its core title, business-to-business catalog Edmund Industrial Optics. "The growth rates were faster on our optical b-to-b business," says Nicole Edmund, vice president of marketing. "So with a limited amount of resources, we wanted to stick with what was giving us our greatest return."

Edmund Scientific, which targets some educators in addition to hobbyists, will retain its name under the $50 million SK. "The Edmund Scientific name has a lot of history," says Randy Burkard, president of Tonawanda, NY-based SK.

Burkard says his company plans to share an as yet undetermined number of Edmund products with three SK catalogs that mail to teachers. At the same time, some items from the existing SK catalogs will be added to the Edmund book. But the company does not plan to mail Edmund books to the SK lists or SK books to the Edmund house file.

B-TO-B A BETTER BET Until the early 1980s, Edmund Scientific had been the cataloger's flagship book. But during the past 20 years, Edmund Optics de-emphasized it in favor of its Edmund Industrial Optics catalog, which sells optical and imaging component solutions to semiconductor, telecommunication, and medical professionals. Whereas Edmund Scientific accounted for 75%-80% of the company's sales in 1980-81, by this year it accounted for only 20% of overall sales.

"The Scientific side of the business needed the leadership and entrepreneurial spirit to take it to the next level," Edmund says. "That's why we think VWR was a good fit."