Hanimex Corporation was an importer and distributor of cameras, lenses and other photographic equipment in Australia and New Zealand. Hanimex cameras were often sold under the Hanimex brand name or together with the Hanimex brand and the Manufacturers brand (e.g., Hanimex Topcon or Hanimex Praktica).
Photographic products distributed by the company were manufactured and supplied by Tōkyō Kōgaku, Sedic, Royal, Finetta, Montanus, Vredeborch and Dacora, and Pentacon, among others. Hanimex also distributed lenses for SLR cameras.
The photography company was founded after the Second World War by Jack Hannes. Jack Dieter Hannes was born in the year 1923 in Berlin. At the age of 11, he was sent to England to Buxton College in Derbyshire. In 1939, Jack’s family fled Germany for Australia. There, at the age of 16, he started studying engineering in Sydney.
After graduation, he started a job with Standard Telephones and returned to college after two years. There he started studying economics. In his spare time, he began importing mechanical pencils, beaded necklaces and trouser hangers by airmail parcels from England. After the war, according to Jack Hannes, it was not hard to sell something, but to have something to sell.
Jack Hannes began to develop an interest in photography and looked for ways to import appropriate products to Australia. The first product was the 35mm camera, Durst Duca. In 1947 the company Hamimex was founded with three employees. Hanimex is composed of the first three letters of his first name and the two initial letters of import and export.
In the following years he signed contracts with camear producers from West and East Germany and Japan. Due to import restrictions, Hanimex also began producing slide projectors under license. By the 1970s, Hanimex was then the second largest manufacturer of slide projectors. It also opened offices around the world and photo labs in New Zealand and Australia. In 1982 Jack Hannes left Hanimex and died in 2005.
