site was put up for sale, but no buyer was found and the factory finally closed on 1 October 1977. The buildings stood empty until 1981. Viewfinder cameras Rollei made other viewfinder cameras besides the Rollei 16 and the Rollei 35, the best-known of which were the A26 and the A110 / E110. The A26 was the smallest camera that used Instamatic film. It was cleverly designed, folding together to protect the lens and the viewfinder. The A110, a successor to the Rollei 16, was a pocket-sized camera that used 110 film cartridges; it was compact, stylish and highly regarded. Later on, Rollei released a cheaper alternative in silver, the E110. Both models sold extremely well – the A26 achieved sales of almost 140,000 units, while over 240,000 pocket cameras were sold. Between 1977 and 1979, Rollei commissioned a little known Japanese company to manufacture a range of three, basic pocket cameras. These were sold under the brand name Pocketline by Rollei. However, sales were poor, although precise sales figures are unavailable. From 1974 onwards, Rollei introduced various 35 mm cameras of conventional design, including the Rolleimat and the Rollei 35XF. Some were sold under the Voigtländer brand with different model names, while others were made in Japan. Singapore Although wages in Germany were low to begin with, they increased steadily, which prompted Peesel to negotiate an exclusive agreement with the government of Singapore in 1970 to manufacture photographic equipment there. In return, he promised to create 10,000 new jobs by the year 1980. Clearly, Rollei would not be able to finance an expansion on this scale itself, so it approached two regional German banks – the Norddeutsche Landesbank and the Hessische Landesbank – who subsequently became shareholders in the company. In those days, risky investments such as this were not that uncommon; Peesel's imperious demeanor within Rollei had so impressed the bankers that they were confident of their investment. Only after the collapse of the Herstatt Bank did financial institutions become more prudent in their lending. Rollei's factory in Singapore astounded everyone, especially those outside of Germany; at that time not even the Japanese had successfully managed to carry out precision manufacturing on the Asian continent. Although Rollei Singapore was fully autonomous, it did not do any product development. In 1974, Rollei's workforce was distributed as follows: 1,648 in Braunschweig, 314 in Uelzen, and 5,696 in Singapore. Although the