Additional memo from Mr. Gumbinner (received on Dec. 15, 2016) 1 Mr. Gumbinner joins Polychrome

This is what I remember about Polychrome.. I may make additions or corrections in the future.

  After a few weeks an employment agency sent me to Polychrome Corporation that was located at the corner of Alexandra and Ashburton.  I was interviewed by Gregory Halpern and hired.  At that time they were coating tissue to be used as a duplicating (mimeograph) stencil.  The lot and building were bought from an oil company. There was a story and half main building.  A brick building which we designated as the ink house and a row of sheds.  Mr. Halpern had started Polychrome in lower Manhattan. First to rework excess printing ink.  He with Jimmy Marr, who coated duplicating stencils in Connecticut and Louis Mestre, a Cuban who had invented the night deposit box for banks made a mimeograph duplicator called the style.  When I arrived at Polychrome this had been discontinued .  

Numbers of companies interested in acquiring Polychrome 5

Numbers of companies interested in acquiring Polychrome 5 .      By Mr. Bob Gumbinner

　

Mr. Halpern met with Mr. Kawamura the president of Dainippon. Dainippon agreed to put ten million dollars of additional capital into the Polychrome operation. They did not expect Mr. Halpern to tender his stock. However he did so and resigned as CEO in 1980. Before resigning he forced Bernard Gold out of the company. We had a meeting at Mr. Halpern’s house to decide who should be the president of Polychrome.  He selected Henry Levy to be the president of Polychrome        Later Dainippon Ink and Chemicals made Joe Piot a friend of Mr. Kawamura the president of Polychrome.

After Mr. Halpern tendered his stock to Dainippon, the Polychrome board declared a reverse split of one share of stock for each share of Polychrome common stock to obtain 100% of the Polychrome shares.

Numbers of companies interested in acquiring Polychrome 4

Numbers of companies interested in acquiring Polychrome 4 .    By Mr. Bob Gumbinner

In 1979, Rhodia  appointed Tony Perone as a director of Polychrome. Mr. Perone wanted Mr. Halpern to resign. They bought the Polychrome stock that the Englehard group owned. Then they made a tender offer to buy at $18 a share to buy a majority of the Polychrome stock. Mr. Halpern had had an understanding with Mr. Koyashi to merge Polychrome with Fuji Film. Unfortunately, Mr. Kobyashi had died by this time and Mr. Onishi was the president of Fuji. Mr. Onishi had been in charge of the Fuji United States operations. Although Jim Graves and Bernard Gold had cultivated Mr. Onishi, Mr. Halpern had ignored him. Mr. Halpern then turned to Dainippon Ink and Chemicals. They entered in a bidding war with Rhone Poulenc for the Polychrome stock. They finally offered $27 a share and bought the Rhodia shares and made a tender offer for the rest. During this period Mr. Picard supported Mr. Halpern rather than the Rhodia offer. Mr. Piani was neutral.

Joe Bonime collection at the BYU

Mr. and Mrs Halpern had a very nice Steinway grand piano in their Tarrytown, NY living room and they said it used to belong to their friend Mischa (Elman! the famous violinist). Recently, after seeing this blog, Dr. Rika Asai of Utah State University Music Department contacted me regarding the Josef Bonime Collection of Radio Music at Brigham Young University. It turns out Mrs. Halpern was a younger sister of Mr. Josef Bonime who spent about 10 years with Mischa Elman as his piano accompanist for Elman’s concert tour before he joined a prominent advertising agency McCann-Erickson where he composed, directed, played, and organized radio programs including "Edison Hour,” “Let's Dance" and many others. The radio music collection was donated to BYU by Polychrome where he joined after his retirement as the special assistant to the president. Apparently, Dr. Delos Bown who once taught at BYU was the bridge between Polychrome and the college. According to Dr. Asai's research the collection was almost forgotten and some of the documents were misplaced or disappeared. As the radio era progressed, early programs sponsored by only one single sponsor was gradually replaced by multi-sponsor or spot commercial format and then the radio program itself was taken over by the progress of television. Dr. Asai's 500+ page dissertation points out the  back stage activities of now almost forgotten era when Josef used segments of music composed for various "mood" of the scene and used effectively for the program.      

Her research appears to me almost an archaeological dig in a forgotten music field. Her findings brought out the lifework of this radio program pioneer in an almost fossilized record in this BYU collection.

I am happy to learn Polychrome was instrumental in safekeeping / time capsuling the record this way and also happy Dr. Asai was able to bring a new life into the historical background of early radio music. Thank you Dr. Asai as well as Erica B. who gave me her family background. (Erica's grandfather was a brother of Josef and another Polychrome employee Leopold "Lee" was Josef’s son.)

(I would be happy to forward you a copy of her dissertation upon request if you are interested in the subject further.     The blogger did not allow me to upload PDF file directly)

Numbers of companies interested in acquiring Polychrome 3

Numbers of companies interested in acquiring Polychrome 3 .    By Mr. Bob Gumbinner

Hanovia had a plant in Newark that made ultraviolet lamps that were used in plate making equipment. Samuel Reed and Orville Beal, representing Englehard were elected directors of Polychrome. Polychrome also paid $315,658 to Engelhard for their services in conjunction with this purchase and later purchase of Polychrome’s stock by Rhodia.

At some point, Ilford lost interest in the offset plate business and sold their forty percent of Polychrome GMBH to Polychrome. Because of the expense of establishing the photographic film facility in Clark, Polychrome required operating capital. Therefore in July, 1974, Polychrome sold 630,000 shares of common stock to Rhodia. In 1975, Mr. Halpern owned about 15% of Polychrome stock, Rhodia 26% and Englehard interests 11.5%. Richard Piani and Raymond Picard were elected Directors of Polychrome.

Rhodia was a wholly owned subsidiary of Rhone Poulenc, the leading manufacturer of chemicals in France. Mr. Picard, chairman of Rhodia, was in charge of the Rhodia operations in the United States. Richard Piani was the managing director of La Cellophane S.A., also a wholly owned subsidiary of Rhone Poulenc. La Cellophane had a plant in Arques La Bataille where they manufactured diazo papers similar to the Speidel operation. They also had a plant in Avranche that made bi and tri metallic printing plates. When I visited these plants, I was shown the operations by Mr. Weber, the research director. La Cellophane bought and sold Polychrome printing products.

Numbers of companies interested in acquiring Polychrome 2

Numbers of corporations interested in aquiring Polyhrome 2    By Mr. Bob Gumbinner

In 1973, Ben Berkey, the owner of Berkey Photo, who had a plant in northern Queens, met Mr. Halpern and discussed merging Polychrome and Berkey. Mr. Halpern suggested that he start by buying Polychrome stock. When Mr. Berkey did so and acquired about 250,000 shares of Polychrome stock, Mr. Halpern became concerned that he might be able to get a majority of Polychrome stock. At that time Mr. Halpern owned about 20% of the Polychrome stock. Mr. Halpern urged the employees to buy Polychrome stock. Although a number of us pledged that we would, it was not enough to guarantee control. Then Mr. Halpern approached Englehard Hanovia and made an arrangement for Englehard to buy the Polychrome stock from Berkey. 

Numbers of companies interested in acquiring Polychrome 1

Numbers of companies interested in acquiring Polychrome 1     By Mr. Bob Gumbinner

A number of companies tried to acquire Polychrome. Mr. Halpern was flattered by this and let them think he was open to selling Polychrome. I visited a number of such companies. One was Fairchild Semi- conductor who showed us their plant on Long island where they were making the silicon crystals for IC chips by the boat process. Another was Itek who brought us to their plant in Lexington, MA, and entertained us.

Another was a company hat coated paper and had a plant in Charlotte, NC and also one in Wales, England. I took a train from London to visit this plant near Chester and saw the Roman walls that were still standing. Then I took the train to Glasgow to a station where I changed to a one car railroad train that went over the hills to Berwick.