American Fokker Factory Photos; an Introduction –

To the collector, there are a lot of photographs available depicting the Fokker aircraft in the United States during the first part of the twentieth century. The number of reproductions is nearly infinite and seldom is origin of the photo given. However, many of these photographs are from the former factory photo files without recognizing the source. For the historian who wants a guide on these photographs’ origin, a short description of the Fokker photographic files follows.

The System
As with many other enterprises, the successive
American Fokker companies/plants each recorded their production with a series of photographs. The photograph number, and later also the date,1 were engraved in one of the corners of the (glass plate) negative. Most of these photographs were taken by the company’s (internal or external) photographer, but use was also made of photos from other sources inserted as reproductions in their own files. The Fokker Company photos were identified by a successive number, mostly issued in a chronological sequence. Sometimes, numbers got a suffix (e.g., the letter ‘A’ or ‘½’) and some series used a prefix. Sometimes, with a number of photos, more than a single version appeared. The ‘Fokker’ logo was sometimes added in one of the corners and in other cases text was added in the lower part. In all, the Fokker factory archives comprised about 3,500 numbered photos.

The dates engraved on the negatives seem to have been their production date, rather than the actual date of taking the photograph. In some cases letter blocks on boards were used to identify the subject in the photo, mentioning a slightly earlier date. Also, blocks of photos taken at the same time do not always have the same logical sequence as their numbering suggests. For example, a sequence might be the walk-around of a particular model. The numbering sequence might seem to indicate that the front and rear shots were first taken followed by a side-view. Logic would seem to indicate that it is most likely the photographer took the side view as he progressed around the plane.

Companies and their files

As there were different U.S. Fokker companies and plants, different series of photos exist. The following presents the details associated with the photographic files from each company.

The various companies and their picture files are:

Netherlands Aircraft Manufacturing Corporation (NAMC): this was the New York sales office from 1920 to 1925 without a separate photo list. [2] The photos of the period were taken by miscellaneous photographers and incorporated later in the listing of AAC.

Atlantic Aircraft Corporation (AAC) started a photo file in 1924 called ‘Hasbrouck Heights’ N.J. after the location of the plant, with the lowest known number as of 1103. The series was discontinued after number 1889, issued in December 1931. In the 300 range, the photographs that are out of chronology were included. A number of photos from this period showed an imprint from the Reid Studio of Paterson, N.J., which apparently did print work for the factory or even did the photography.[4]

Fokker Aircraft Corp. (FAC) was actually the successor to NAMC as sales and promotional organization and had no own photo files. Use was made of the AAC numbering.

Fokker Aircraft Corporation of America (FACoA) was set up in 1927 as a production plant at Glen Dale near Wheeling, W.V., with AAC as its subsidiary. The photographs started with prints apparently taken by a local photoshop owner, identified by a K-prefix to the number. This practice lasted . . .