12 Facts About Fred Spira

Fred Spira was an inventor and innovator in photography as well as a collector of photographic equipment, images, books, and ephemera.

Fred Spira is credited as one of three individuals who opened up the US market to quality Japanese photographic goods.

Fred Spira's father was an official at the Bodencreditanstalt bank and later owned the Photohaus Spira-Ritz.

Fred Spira left England with his father in June 1940, sailing to North America on the SS Antonia, where the two were reunited with Spira's mother, who had arrived in New York on the SS Volendam in February of that year.

Fred Spira worked for the family business as well as part-time for another photofinisher, while attending evening high school and graduating as the class valedictorian.

Fred Spira's father died unexpectedly in 1945 and Spira, who was already attending college, left school to support his mother and himself.

In 1946, Fred Spira opened a store on West 27th Street and started to sell a variety of photographic equipment, including cameras and accessories, by mail.

Fred Spira was at the "forefront" of the technological revolution in lens attachments having developed a variety of filters and lens accessories that added unusual and special effects to photographs, and was "the most important" supplier of such attachments.

Fred Spira began collecting autographs relating to the history of photography in the 1960s.

The major part of the Fred Spira Collection was sold to the state of Qatar with plans of having the collection placed displayed in a yet to be constructed purpose-built photography museum.

Since that announcement, the fate of the Fred Spira Collection is not known since the museum authority have since removed all mentions of the collection from their website.

Fred Spira died from complications of Alzheimer's disease on September 2,2007, at his home in Beechhurst, Queens, New York, at the age of 83.