Pekka Buttler, 08/2025
Allied Impex Corporation, also known as AIC, Allied Import/Export or Allied Impex, is best known for its influential role in the US and global photographic equipment market during the mid-20th century. Subsequently, this article will refer to the company as AIC for brevity and clarity1.
AIC
AIC was founded in 1956 by Victor Silverman, Ben Silverman, Bruno Multer, and Ralph Lowenstein. These four founders all shared the same background – having been Jews who fled Nazi Germany – but AIC was not an equal partnership. The Silverman brothers were owners, while the others were employees – key employees, but even so.
The company’s business model was that of importing and distributing Photo gear. The ‘importing’ mostly meant Japanese camera gear and the ‘distributing’ was done partially through some rather aggressive marketing2, partially using AIC’s US regional offices (HQ in NYC, regional offices in Chicago, Dallas and L.A.).
In terms of cameras AIC quickly found a workhorse in the Miranda camera company – a company that was early in on the Japanese SLR boom (See Miranda company profile), but was new enough to not yet have a US distributor.
Beside the Miranda camera, AIC also started selling Japanese off-brand third party lenses and other photographic accessories using the Soligor brand (Soligor was an AIC trademark). In terms of lenses, Soligor was a typical 1960s operation that AIC would deal with Japanese lens manufacturers, and would often come to those companies with requests like: “We’d need a fast portrait lens, what could you offer us?” and in case AIC was satisfied with the offering, AIC would commission a series of those lenses.
While AIC did have a special interest in offering lenses for the Miranda camera (and the Miranda mount), lenses are a volume game, so it was in AIC’s interest to offer Soligor lenses for a wide spectrum of proprietary lens mounts3, including also intermediate mounts such as the T-2 and T-4 mounts.
With the overall growth of the amateur photographic market, the 1960s were a good decade for AIC. In 1968 AIC founded a subsidiary in Germany (A.I.C. Phototechnik GmbH) which would act as distributor for Miranda cameras and Soligor lenses and accessories in (continental) Western Europe. In 1968 AIC also went public and used some of that capital to buy the Miranda camera company outright (in 1969).
Problematically, the Miranda-acquisition turned out to be difficult to assimilate/integrate and even though AIC was a major player on the global stage, that was not enough to stop Miranda cameras from falling behind the development curve. Moreover, AIC management was burdened by an ill-timed loss, all contributing to that the 1970s was not as good a decade for AIC as the previous had been. Miranda was allowed to go into bankruptcy in 1976 and before the 70s were over, the Allied Impex Corp of the United states had also ceased operations.
Soligor
Interestingly, that was not the end of AIC/Soligor, as the German subsidiary that had been founded in 1968 remained. A.I.C. Phototechnik GmbH continued operations largely as before (but clearly focusing on the European market) and even started selling cameras under the Soligor brand. Most of these cameras were rebranded Cosina cameras, but a few were also from more illustrious manufacturers.
Soligor continued also continued selling lenses for various other cameras and lens mounts, and while the AF-revolution clearly made this business more challenging (due to the added dependence on electronic communication) A.I.C. Phototechnik GmbH was not ready to quit yet. In 1993 the company even changed its name to Soligor GmbH.
Soligor GmbH eventually ceased operations and sold remaining assets in 2011, due – in part – to succession issues.
Who were the original manufacturers?
In those cases where a company sells a product that it did not itself manufacture, JAPB always has a special interest in trying to decipher (or make educated guesses about) the original manufacturer of the gear. Especially so in the case of lenses.
In the case of Soligor lenses, today’s lens aficionados are in the fortunate situation that Soligor used a relatively clear-cut scheme that allows the identification of an absolute majority of all lenses sold under the Soligor brand4. That scheme is based on the first number (or in some cases the first letter and number) of the lens’ serial number, with – in some cases – the subsequent numbers allowing the dating of a lens’ manufacturing year.
| Serial number begins with … | Original manufacturer is |
|---|---|
| 1 | Tokina |
| 2 | Sun Optical |
| 3 | Sun Optical |
| 4 | Sun Optical |
| 6 | Komine |
| 7 | Sun Optical |
| 8 | Tokina |
| 9 | Kobori |
| A | Komura |
| H37 | Kawanon |
| H4 | Kawanon |
| H5 | Komine |
| H6 | Komine |
| H7 | Tokina |
| K | Kowa |
| KA | Kyoei Acall |
| R | Itoh |
| T | Tamron |
Other brands?
Did AIC (either AIC of the US or A.I.C of Germany) have any other “house brands” besides Soligor? Yes, no, kind-of.
First, the based on early AIC Corp brochures it seems that AIC played with the Accura house brand before deciding to focus on Soligor.
Second, AIC seems to have at times collaborated with Hanimex of Australia, and some of those lenses were branded Hanimex-Soligor.
Third, in a similar collaboration with Dixon’s (UK distributor) some Soligor gear was sold under the Prinzflex and Prinzgalaxy names.
Four, AIC (Europe) seems to have sold some accessories and binoxulars using the Solexar brand.
Finally, after taking ownership of the Miranda camera company on 1969, one could argue that Miranda was an AIC house brand.
Back to the listing of all JAPB company profiles
Footnotes
- Clarity, because technically there were two companies from the beginning: AIC Photo Inc, owned by the Silverman brothers, and its subsidiary Allied Import/Export, for which also messers Multer and Lowenstein worked. However, as many of the available sources miss the distinction between these two companies and real risk of confusion exists, I’ve chosen to lump them together in this brief company profile. ↩︎
- see Mike Eckman’s ingenious article on AIC’s rather provocative ads. ↩︎
- including (at least): Canon FD, C/Y, Konica AR, M42, Minolta SR, Nikon F, Olympus OM, Pentax K, Praktica B.
During the AF era also Canon EF and Minolta A mount lenses would be offered. ↩︎ - As a cruel twist, this does not apply to Miranda lenses, not even when they were sold as “Soligor Miranda” lenses. ↩︎