Brand Review · No. 03 of 11 03

RICOH & FAMILY

The quiet giant — everyone else’s engine, and eventually everyone else’s owner.

Ricoh spends the first half of the decade building other people’s copiers, and the second half buying the other people. The FT series is the analog era in beige; the Aficio digitises it.

Stand before a Savin, a Gestetner, a Nashuatec or a Rex-Rotary in 1992 and the odds are you are looking at a Ricoh engine in a different suit — Savin had been Ricoh-built since the 1960s, Gestetner since the mid-sixties. The pedigree was real — the first analog colour copier (COLOR 5000, 1985), the pioneering office digital IMAGIO 320 (1987) — only the name on the panel wasn’t.

The FT analog consoles carry the first half, model numbers stating the speed in the last two digits: FT4527, 27 cpm; FT5535, 35. Then 1996: the imagio MF200 sells in record numbers and tips Japan’s shipments from analog to digital; in July, Aficio becomes the one global badge for the digital line. Rather than argue with its badge customers, Ricoh buys them — Savin, March 1995; Gestetner Holdings, that September; Lanier at $3 a share (completed January 2001).

Ricoh — The Range, 1990–2000

Model	Year	CPM	Notable
FT4215–FT4421	late 80s–90s	15–21	Low-end family; Type 410 toner
FT4522 / FT4527	c. 1993	22 / 27	The 5535’s service siblings
FT5035 / FT5535	c. 1993	35	Plate No. 5; the definitive analog
FT6645–FT7670	mid–late 90s	45–70	Copy-room FTs; Type 620 toner
imagio MF200	1996	20	Tipped Japan analog→digital
Aficio 200 / 250	1996–97	20 / 25	First of the new global badge
Aficio 340–650	c. 1998–99	34–65	Digital MFPs; retired the FT66xx
Aficio 850 / 1050	c. 2000	85 / 105	Digital reaches the copy room
ARTAGE 8000	1990	15 col.	Four-drum tandem; fastest at launch

THE VERDICT — RICOH

Range depth★★★★☆

Build & reliability★★★★★

Innovation★★★★☆

Wearing others’ badges★★★★★

It built half the industry’s machines, let four other logos take the compliments, then bought the logos.

The rebadge map

Badge	Relationship	Fate
Savin (USA)	Ricoh-built since the 1960s	Bought Mar 1995; badge kept
Gestetner (UK)	Ricoh machines since mid-60s	Bought Sept 1995; into NRG
Nashuatec	The N in NRG; Ricoh engines	Retired into “Ricoh”
Rex-Rotary (DK)	The R in NRG; Ricoh copiers	Same NRG road
Lanier (USA)	Harris spin-off; engine mix unv.	$3 a share, Jan 2001; badge kept

THE UNGLAMOROUS HERO: Ricoh FT5535 (c. 1993, unverified) — 35 cpm, 20 at A3, zoom to 200%, ~82 kg of console; sorter-stapler optional. Nothing about it was revolutionary; everything about it was everywhere, under five badges.

In Depth · Ricoh & Family 03

THREE WAYS TO BUY A RICOH

Every office ladder of the decade had three rungs. Ricoh’s had a peculiarity: whichever rung you chose, and whoever’s showroom you chose it in, the machine was quite possibly the same one. What follows is a range that sold under as many as five names, reviewed under its own.

The entry ticket

The bottom rung is the FT4xxx family: compact low-end consoles from the FT4215 through the FT4421 (15–21 cpm, Type 410 toner) that copied the parish newsletter without complaint, the FT4022/4027 that opened the shared-developer mid-range, and by c. 1993 the FT4522 and FT4527 — 22 and 27 cpm, the 27 actually verified from the service manual, a sentence this magazine rarely gets to write. Trade-offs at this altitude were simple: the feeder was optional, the sorter was optional, and the badge, it turned out, was negotiable.

Against Sharp’s SF-2022 at 22 cpm — the twentieth-anniversary model of 1992, feeder and sorter likewise optional — the FT4522 was a dead heat, decided by whichever dealer sent the better calendar. The buyer was the church office, the two-partner solicitor, the school front desk: five thousand copies a month and no further conversation. A fair number bought an FT4xxx without ever knowing it; the same box stood in the Gestetner showroom wearing a different name.

The engine room

The middle is where Ricoh lived. The FT5035 and FT5535 (c. 1993, 35 cpm, 20 at A3, roughly 82 kg, zoom to 200%) are the definitive analog consoles of the decade — optional reversing ARDF for two-sided originals, optional sorter-stapler for the collation theatre. The FT5135/FT4127 refresh and the FT5632–5840 generation carried the analog line to the brink; then 1996 removed the floor. The imagio MF200 (20 cpm digital, the smallest-width A3 body of its day) sold in record numbers in Japan; the Aficio 200/250 (20 and 25 cpm) carried the new global badge abroad; and by c. 1998–99 the Aficio 340/350/450 (34–45 cpm, ARDF, optional finisher) were doing in memory what the sorter did in metal.

Against Canon’s NP-6030 at 30 cpm — 1992’s ecological darling, 20-bin stapler sorter on the options list — the FT5535 conceded the greener brochure and kept the five extra copies a minute. Its most dangerous rival, however, was itself in a Nashuatec suit, at whatever price that dealer had decided on that morning.

The summit

Top rung: the FT6645/6655/6665 trio (45/55/65 cpm, Type 620 toner rated at 38,000 copies) and the FT7650–7670 consoles (50–70 cpm), feeders and finishers attached, living in rooms with their own ventilation. Colour was the moon-shot: the ARTAGE 8000 of 1990 put four OPC drums in tandem for 15 colour pages a minute — the world’s fastest at launch, in an era when a colour copy elsewhere meant one drum, four passes, and about five minutes of everyone waiting. And at the very end, digital took the copy room itself: the Aficio 850/1050 (c. 2000; 85 and an inferred 105 cpm) with production finishing bolted on.

Against Mita’s DC-8090 at 80 cpm — the analog print-shop loyalist’s choice — the Aficio 850 offered the unanswerable argument of collation in memory. The buyer up here was the print room and the copy bureau; the invoice went to someone who never saw the machine.

The most dangerous rival to a Ricoh FT5535 was a Ricoh FT5535 with someone else’s name on the front.

If you bought one — the shortlist, 1996

Model	Tier	Why
FT4527	The entry ticket	27 cpm, verified by the service manual itself; the honest parish workhorse
FT5535	The engine room	35 cpm, 82 kg, five badges; the decade’s default photocopier
FT6665	The summit	65 cpm on 38,000-copy toner; the copy-room FT before digital came for it

Head to head: the family against the field

FT4527 v SF-2027 v BD-2810

	Ricoh FT4527	Sharp SF-2027	Toshiba BD-2810
Speed	27 cpm (verified)	27 cpm (unverified)	28 cpm (inferred), 1989
Feeder	opt. ARDF	opt. ADF	opt. ADF
Finishing	opt. sorter	opt. sorter	opt. sorter
The call	A dead heat in beige — but only the Ricoh’s reversing feeder turns two-sided originals over, and only the Ricoh might already be in your office under another name.

FT5535 v NP-6030 v SF-2035

	Ricoh FT5535	Canon NP-6030	Sharp SF-2035
Speed	35 cpm; 20 at A3	30 cpm (1992)	35 cpm
Feeder	opt. ARDF	opt. RDF-C1	ADF
Finishing	opt. sorter-stapler	opt. 20-bin stapler sorter, duplex unit	sorter
The call	Canon brings ecology and the better brochure; Sharp brings a weekly timer; Ricoh brings 82 kilograms of simply continuing to work.

Aficio 650 v Konica 7050 v Document Centre 265

	Ricoh Aficio 650	Konica 7050	Xerox DC 265
Speed	65 cpm (c. 1998–99, unverified)	50 cpm (1995 JP; intl. 1997)	65 cpm (unverified)
Feeder	ARDF	RADF	DADF
Finishing	finisher, staple	FS-102/103 finishers	finisher/stapler
The call	Konica got there first and said “world’s fastest digital” loudly; Xerox renamed the copier a Document Centre; the Aficio quietly retired the FT66xx — and refilled four other brands’ catalogues while it was at it.

▮ The equivalence table — the trade’s worst-kept secret

Every dealer of the era had one somewhere: the cross-reference list mapping Ricoh model numbers to their Gestetner, Nashuatec and Rex-Rotary twins. The machines were identical down to the options — the SR-series finishers, RT-series trays and DF/ARDF feeders carried across all the badges unchanged apart from the logo. One finisher, five logos. (The specific code-to-model map remains unverified; period brochures wanted.) In 1995 Ricoh stopped negotiating with its badge customers and simply bought them — Savin in March, Gestetner Holdings in September — and collected Lanier in January 2001 at three dollars a share. The badges survived the mystery; the mystery did not survive the accountants.

BUYING ADVICE, 1990s

The entry ticket (FT4xxx)★★★★☆

The engine room (FT5535)★★★★★

The summit (FT66xx–Aficio 850)★★★★☆

Odds it is secretly a Ricoh★★★★★

Buy the FT5535 under whichever badge answers the phone first. The machine cannot tell the difference, and after a week neither will you.

ONE ENGINE, FIVE SUITS: the same Ricoh-built console as sold under two of its badges. Period equivalence tables mapped Ricoh numbering to Gestetner, Nashuatec and Rex-Rotary twins (the trade circulated the lists; the exact model map remains unverified). The difference is circled. It is the badge.