On Sunday, April 13, 2003 at 8:50:34 AM UTC-5, C.Phillips wrote:
So some of you folks thought that you had the provenance of the
Tiltall/Star D line of tripods down pretty good, did you? You know - Marchioni brothers, then Leitz, then Star-D and now after a long pause
a company in China? Well here's something that I stumbled upon while
looking through ebay's [recently] past auctions. Take a look at:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2917839439&category=30095
Now here's what has been bothering me about this New Old Stock tripod:
1) The name plate riveted to the tripod says "Brilliant Professional" as
made by the "Brilliant Screen & Tripod Inc." company of Jersey City N.J. However, the old hang tag attached to the tripod says "Star-D D-26 Professional" of 889 Broadway, New York NY. This info I received today
after contacting the winning bidder, and he says that the hang tag
mentions *nothing* about the Brilliant company name, only Star-D.
This has me thinking that just *maybe* this "Star-D" hang tag doesn't actually belong to this tripod, yet the tripod itself does appear to be
more like a Tiltall (or Star-D variant), at least according to the jpeg pictures and the buyer's E-mail description of it. So what's going on?
2) Speaking of that hang tag... notice that it's attached by a string to
a center column folding-type elevator crank? Yep, this "Brilliant Professional" has a geared center column (as you may be able to just
barely make out by the teeth on the column). Otherwise it's 100%
identical in every way to a Tiltall according to the buyer - the same materials, same shape, same machining, same screws. The telescoping legs
have brass inserts and not the later Star-D nylon, and the feet have
spikes that extend and retract by turning a knurled ring with the rubber cushions staying in place. It seems that this tripod is a Tiltall in
every way but the name - and the fact that it has a geared column.
And back to that Star-D hang tag - the fact that the tripod has a geared center column which isn't even mentioned on the tags bulleted "features"
list (according to the buyer) hints that maybe this tag doesn't belong
and was added by someone later, perhaps by a long ago camera store employee/owner trying to sell the tripod by using a better known name?
Why would a tripod manufactured by the "Brilliant Screen & Tripod Inc." company and called the "Brilliant Professional" model have a Star-D hang
tag on it to begin with?
3) The 4 handles aren't attached and aren't otherwise shown, no big deal
and probably irrelevant to the general thrust of this post. But the
buyer says that they came in a separate envelope and are the standard
all aluminum Tiltall/Star-D type machined handles - one long, one
medium length, and two knurled short stubbys.
More questions (what, me redundant?):
Is it possible that this old (NOS- New Old Stock) tripod made by
Brilliant Screen & Tripod Inc. located in N.J is the *predecessor* to
the Marchioni company - could the Marchioni brothers have started their company in N.J. under the Brilliant name before changing it by/to using
their Sir name? Or was the tripod made by the Marchioni Bros. and sold
under license to Brilliant for Brilliant to machine a geared column into
it and then resell with the Brilliant name riveted on? It's interesting
to note here that the Brilliant company and the Marchioni operations
were both located in New Jersey, Leitz and Star-D I'm not sure about tho
I believe Star-D at least had their warranty service address as NYC yet
I'm not sure where their manufacturing facilities were actually located.
On the other hand, it could be a product made after the Marchioni Bros.
sold the rights to Leitz and then Star-D, and it was made by one of them
and sold under license to the Brilliant company for them to machine a
geared crank and center column into and re-label under their own name.
But that doesn't sound right either - why would an outside company
invest in the machining/milling tools just to make a geared center
column on somebody else's tripod when (more than likely) the original
company - be it the Marchioni Bros. or Leitz or Star-D - already had the tooling to do this in the first place? Why not, for instance, just do it
and call it the "Tiltall Professional Plus" ("with new geared column")
or the Leitz or Star-D "Hey Buddy, Crank This" version or... whatever?
This last speculation of mine is the one that I think is the more likely scenario: First came the original designers and makers, the Marchioni
Bros. - then along came Leitz - then, and for a very brief and now
forgotten time period came Brilliant who added the geared center column
onto the original design - then came the Davidson company that chucked
the geared column and went back to the original version, perhaps as a
cost saving necessity, and who produced both the Tiltall and Star-D line
of tripods, later just the Star-D line and eventually into bankruptcy.
But if this sequence is correct, then that might explain the Star-D hang
tag on a Brilliant tripod, as Davidson/Star-D now owned some Brilliant Professional tripods that were easier to get rid of by simply slapping a Star-D hang tag on and shoving them into a Star-D or Tiltall box and
Getting Them Out The Door! It sure beats trying to remove and replace a
metal nameplate that's already riveted on with one of your own...
Who was the Brilliant Screen & Tripod Inc. company anyway, and what ever happened to them? I assume by the name that they also made (perhaps as
their primary focus) projection screens, but I can't find a single clue
as to their products much less their company history and timeline, and
the thick industry trade catalogs I once owned from the 1960's thru the
late 1970's I long ago threw in the trash - darn it.
Does anybody know *anything at all* about this older tripod or the
history of the company that made it? Don't bother asking me any
questions as the above is what very little I know about it. I'm just
hoping that the name and the auction's jpegs will jar somebody's memory.
And just when you photographic equipment history buffs thought you had
the Tiltall tripod history 100% right, here comes the bug in the soup.
8-0
(Please post all responses to this thread and not E-mail directly)
I OWN A STAR-D VIDEO-PRO D-70 TRIPOD Cat.No:SD7070 that I bought in the 1970s. The box reads Star-D Precision Tripod, Star MFG Co. Inc. 61-10 34th Avenue, Woodside, N.Y. 11377; "OUR 46TH YEAR".
It is a quality tripod that I have used for years - I would say professional grade - and I found it interesting that it has a Woodside, NY address that I didn't see on any of the other posts. Also interesting that it states "46th Year". I haven't found
much on the internet about this company and was trying to price it for ebay or Craigs List.
--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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