Sunagor is a Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

ese manufacturer and brand of optical products, founded in 1948. The company specialises in binoculars

Binoculars

Binoculars, field glasses or binocular telescopes are a pair of identical or mirror-symmetrical telescopes mounted side-by-side and aligned to point accurately in the same direction, allowing the viewer to use both eyes when viewing distant objects...

 and has been manufacturing them for over 60 years. Sunagor advertises ultra high magnification zoom binoculars and in early 2009 Sunagor launched what they claim to be the world's most powerful commercially available model, 30-160x70. They have also been involved in the manufacture of telescopic lenses, as well as other camera accessories.

The company has representation worldwide but after being acquired by Trans-World Trading, moved its headquarters from Japan to London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

. Although, it still kept its manufacturing and R and D facilities in Japan.

History

Sunagor was founded in June 1948 in Japan. Over the ensuing two decades, Sunagor built itself up in Japan as a manufacturer of binoculars and associated accessories. Although Sunagor achieved variable success in Japan, it never moved outside of Japan’s boundaries and eventually growth stalled. In the early 1970s, the company was bought out privately by Trans-World Trading, whom ensued on a plan for world wide development and distribution. Trans-World tried to build the brand up off the back of Sunagor’s precision Japanese image. The Brand received the most exposure in Europe and the U.K. where it became one of the biggest binoculars supplier to both DSG International (retailer)

DSG International (retailer)

Dixons Retail plc is a British company and one of the largest consumer electronics retailers in Europe. The company operates Dixons.co.uk as well as Dixons Travel, Currys, Currys.digital, PC World and Electro World stores along with many other brands across Europe including: Pixmania, Equanet and...

 and Argos (retailer)

Argos (retailer)

Argos is the largest general-goods retailer in the United Kingdom and Ireland with over 800 stores. It is unique amongst major retailers in the UK in that it is a catalogue merchant...

. Sunagor made their products available through mail order

Mail order

Mail order is a term which describes the buying of goods or services by mail delivery. The buyer places an order for the desired products with the merchant through some remote method such as through a telephone call or web site. Then, the products are delivered to the customer...

. They stocked various mail order houses, including Argos and Sears. In 1985, they also moved into press direct mail order, working closely with The Daily Mail

Daily Mail

The Daily Mail is a British daily middle-market tabloid newspaper owned by the Daily Mail and General Trust. First published in 1896 by Lord Northcliffe, it is the United Kingdom's second biggest-selling daily newspaper after The Sun. Its sister paper The Mail on Sunday was launched in 1982...

 as well as The Times

The Times

The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...

, and also made regular appearances on the QVC

QVC

QVC is a multinational corporation specializing in televised home shopping. Founded in 1986 by Joseph Segel in West Goshen Township, Pennsylvania, United States, QVC broadcasts in five countries as QVC US, QVC UK, QVC Germany, QVC Japan and – QVC Italy to 200 million households...

 shopping channel. In 2008 they employed Vyper Industries to operate their online sales via Amazon.com

Amazon.com

Amazon.com, Inc. is a multinational electronic commerce company headquartered in Seattle, Washington, United States. It is the world's largest online retailer. Amazon has separate websites for the following countries: United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Japan, and...

 - U.K.

Products

• Telescopic lenses - Introduced in the 1970s as stand alone telescopic lenses (without producing the camera units) that could be attached to any SLR cameras. These were fazed out with the introduction of compact digital cameras in early 2000 and loss in popularity of SLRs.

• Compact zoom binoculars - These range from 18x to 110x magnification.

• Full zoom binoculars - These include fully waterproof models and rubber armoured models. Recently, Sunagor launched a model that they claim to be the world’s most powerful going up to 160x magnification with a diameter of 70mm objectives.