Sunday, January 29, 2017

Polychrome acquires Cellofilm

Polychrome acquires Cellofilm     By Mr. Bob Gumbinner

In 1961, we also acquired the Cellofilm Co., located in Woodridge, NJ. The sales manager of Cellofilm, Stanley Eysmann, was appointed President. His father had started Cellofilm in the 1920s to remove the silver from used photographic film. We had bought the reels of the nitrocellulose from which the silver had been removed for the stencil coating solutions and most users preferred to buy it dissolved. One of the biggest customers used it to make plastic wood. It was also used in nail polish. Cellofilm also received rent for storing rolls of news film in brick vaults. In 1965, a plant to make the nitrocellulose solutions was established in Chicago a few miles from Midway to make these solutions. Later, Cellofilm obtained the exclusive rights to import nitrocellulose from Europe. Unfortunately, during a shut-down when the clean-up crew was sweeping the floor they did not wet it with water as instructed and there was a fire and several workers were critically injured.