Annual Report 1973

This is another contribution from Ray Baer. (Thank you Ray)  It shows the company with $14 million sales in 1964 progressively growing to $45 million in 1973.      The company stock was traded on the American Stock Exchange under PYC.      Read the detail in HERE

The black center above is due to the reflection of scanner.    It is actually a shiny aluminum plate embossed with words, Polychrome Uvimer, Flexomer as you could see inside in color printing.

Osterode and Berwick as recalled by Mr. Gumbinner

Mr. Bob Gumbinner  sent in the following recollection of early European operation.      Thank you Mr. Gumbinner

The German company started when Mr. Halpern met Aurich and Feist at Drupa and bought their small operation  in Berlin making electrolytic etched plates.  Mr. Feist chose Osterode for the plant because it  had a large reservoir.  Unfortunately he chose a site in a suburb called Freihelt to rent.  When the tank operation was installed, we found limited water because the mains were small and corroded.  We added tanks  to store water at night and weekends.  To manage the plant Mr. Halpern interviewed a number of German speaking individuals in Yonkers and hired one as general manager.  Later the plant was moved into a furniture sales facility in Osterode. (That's the Osterode factory we know of!  KS)
The Berwick site was selected by Tom Heckles who was the manager of the Polychrome operations in Watford England  after discussions with the local Berwick authorities.  (Tom was born there I believe. KS )    Tom and his wife Shiela later moved to Australia. The chemists, Bob Armstrong among others, were transferred to the Columbus Georgia plant when Berwick was closed.

(Doug Chu found an obituary for Tom Heckels recently in the Berwick Advertiseron 28th October 2010
 On 26th October peacefully at home, Thomas (Tom) aged 81 years, beloved husband of Sheila, dearly loved dad of Fiona and William and a much loved grandpa Tom. )

      

Polychrome Plate History by Mr. Robert Gumbinner.....C machine

Mr. Bob Gumbinner's Plate History now covers the C machine which made grained anodized plate.        This "pumice grained" and anodized base became the backbone of Polychrome plates till Columbus plants started to produce electrolytically grained plates much later on.      Our licensee Fuji Photo Film's plant took the concept for their plants later on.

After a year or so it was decided to order a third machine--the C machine. This machine started with a two axle unwind stand from Deprieux and a tape heat seal unit. (Later an accumulator was added. Most of the unit was built by Century Engineering. This included a six double brush grainer with a slurry spray for the top side of the aluminum foil and immersion pans for graining the bottom side when desired. After going through a rinse section the aluminum foil went around a contact roller connected to the cathode side of two AC/DC anodizer units either by a commutator or brushes. Aluminum anodes were suspended above and below the foil. The first set of anodes were at a low voltage to prevent burning. The second set at a higher voltage.           After rinsing an interlayer of either silicate or potassium zirconium hexafluoride was applied, this was followed by a hot and cold rinse. After drying the aluminium foil was coated in one or both sides before being cut into the proper plate size.

R&D Photos from 1980's

Dr. Jim Shelnut who worked on Posimatte ... a successful positive working plate with outstanding printout and good vacuum drawdown is now a patent attorney and sent in his collection of photos during the time he was with Polychrome.     Thank you Jim

Bridge at Polychrome 

Jim, Dr. Bown, Bob Pillar, von Grnberg

Chess with Al Deutsch 1979

Wilkes, Golda

Polychrome Award dinner

Polychrome gang birthday party

Richie Cohen

Wiles, Golda, Jim

Old Christmas Photo

In the beginning Polychrome's Christmas Party was held at Mr. Halpern's house.       When the numbers of employees increased, the venue was moved to the Tappan Hills Restaurant in Tarrytown.         Venue was moved again in late 1970 to Hilton Hotel Ballroom in Tarrytown (it is now Double Tree).   The last one there was in 1979.           Doug Chu sent me pictures from perhaps mid-late 1960's.      You may recognize many old faces when they were very young!

Mr. Halpern with his friends

 Mrs. Halpern with her friends

Awards to Tony Calamia and Al Taudien

Jim Graves and Jim Epperson

Simon Chu speaks

Irving Simmons from Chromatone Ink

Stan Eysman of Cellofilm

Mr. Gumbinner 

Mr. Gumbinner with Kay Gumbinner

Mr. Bernard Gold and Lee Bonime

Carol Chu and Mrs. Halpern

Lee with door priace

Ray Lauzon and his table

Lou Kaplan from Cellofilm, Seth Cross and John Randolph

Ray Lauzon and his wife

Lee Bonime

Dr. Al Deutsch and Alex Halpern

Mr. Gumbinner's table with Joe Moutal

Cellofilm/Cellomer table with Bill Dodds

Ed Bagwell and?

Viktor Tkaczenko

Mr. Halpern with a young lady whose name Tore Harms may recall

Bill Dodds

Lillian Cooprsmith here

This is me and my wife Teruko with Joe Moutal .  we happen to know this is from 1967.   In the previous photos Mrs. Moutal wore different dress.    That suggests the pictures aboves may be taken a bit later.

Annual Report 1980

Thanks to Ray Baer, we now have  more yeas of Annual Reports to upload.     The 1980 Annual reports features a chemist on the cover believed to be Dr. Albert Deutsch who was in charge of synthesis and later expanded into a photoresist business.       Read the entire content of this Annual Report HERE.    (Sadly just learned that Dr. Deutsch passed away in 2011.)

Taking the Challenge

Ray Baer sent in the following note regarding the "Corporate Challenge" scrapbook (Thank you Ray!)   How many do you recognize?

Here is Ray's summery

The Corporate Challenge is an event held every year in Central Park (plus a few other places in the greater NY area).  It is a 3.5 mile race that many companies would participate in.  John was the motivating factor and organizer for Polychrome.  Polychrome started participating in 1989, and we participated as Polychrome each year through 1992.  Starting in 1993 we participated as Sun Chemical, or Sun Chemical/Polychrome, and we participated in the race until 1997, although we have no pictures from that last year.  It was always a fun event, just being in NYC with a bunch of co-workers from Yonkers/Fort Lee/Clark and thousands of participants from other companies.  We also always went out to dinner (on the company of course) afterwards which was also a lot of fun.

And John Baran adds

Organizing the event was a labor of love.  We always had a great mix of dedicated runners and some just curious about the challenge.  Ray was a great partner,  whether handling the finances or contributing to the T-Shirt design.  I bet  we were the only team to incorporate Grateful Dead dancing bears into our mix,

Polychrome Plate History by Mr. Robert Gumbinner.....B machine

This is the continuing history note from Mr. Gumbinner and the history of the B machine built in the Ashburton Ave. factory and probably the machine which made smooth anodized presensitized plate called LS 100

A little later based on work done in an aluminum anodizing shop in Mount Vernon, a second line the B line for treating the aluminum in rolls up to 60 inches wide was ordered from Century. A hot tape splicing section and later a two station unwind stand was ordered from Deprieux in Germany. The anodizing section was two four foot diameter rubber covered drums in a tank with walls line for with lead water cooled pipes for cathodes. Because of leak problems by difference of weight of drums when in an empty tank and 16% sulfuric acid there were leak problems. So the tanks were used half full. This was followed by a series of tanks for rinsing and applying either a hot sodium silicate solution or a potassium zirconium fluoride solution. This was followed by a washing solution; then a deionized water rinse; then a drier. After this the aluminum was coated either with squeeze rollers or a photo sensitive solution made with the diazo precipitated with MS-40 combined with polyvinyl formaldehyde and epoxy resin such as epon 1004 or epon 1008.

Rare R&D party early 1980's

This was the rare R&D  party with spouse in early 1980's possibly to celebrate Laserscan Intertech Award.      Besides Simon and Carol Chu who organized this get together, you could see Bill Rowe, Eugene Golda, Raji Doshi, Jen-chi Huang, Philemon Yamin, John Loftus, Bill Saltzman, Chuck Kreiner, Bill Palafox, Tore Harms, Jay Patel, Ken Feinstein, Peggy Otis,  Tanimoto of DIC and me; some with spouse    (According to Bill Palafox, who unlike me retains good memory cells, points out that this was indeed the Lasescan  Intertech Award celebration and was held on top of the old World Trade Center!)