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Ricoh

Japanese multinational imaging and electronics company

Layered newspapers, civic records and oral-history reels arranged as chronological evidence
History and societyInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 21, 2026
Entity authorityQ178778 ↗
Source-derived summary

Ricoh Company, Ltd. () (株式会社リコー, Kabushiki-gaisha Rikō) is a Japanese multinational imaging and electronics company. It was founded by the now-defunct commercial division of the Institute of Physical and Chemical Research (Riken) known as the Riken Concern, on 6 February 1936 as Riken Sensitized Paper (理研感光紙, Riken Kankōshi). Ricoh's headquarters is located in Ōta, Tokyo.

Ricoh produces electronic products, primarily cameras and office equipment such as printers, photocopiers, fax machines, and projectors, and also offers Software as a Service (SaaS) document management applications such as DocumentMall, RicohDocs, GlobalScan, Print&Share, and MakeLeaps. From the late 1990s through the early 2000s, the company grew to become the largest copier manufacturer in the world. During this time, Ricoh acquired Savin, Gestetner, Lanier, Rex-Rotary, Monroe, Nashuatec, IKON and most recently IBM Printing Systems Division / Infoprint Solutions Company. Although the Monroe brand was discontinued, products continue to be marketed worldwide under the remaining brand names. In 2006, Ricoh acquired the European operations of Danka for $210 million. These operations continue as a stand-alone business unit, under the Infotec brand.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Ricoh” is japanese multinational imaging and electronics company. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Ricoh, Japanese and multinational, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA strong contextual entry point for chronology, institutions and public events when official records are distinguished from later interpretation. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1936, 2006—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1936. For this dossier, Ricoh, Japanese and multinational is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “japanese multinational imaging and electronics company” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Chronology, provenance and viewpoint should be read together before a broad social or political interpretation is accepted. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 21, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q178778. VIAF identifies the subject as 47145602556801361994. 2 of 5 selected statements include explicit references; 3 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1936 and 2006.

Critical limits

Official terminology may obscure informal participation, dissent or communities documented only indirectly. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Compare institutional narratives with records created by participants and affected communities. Dates and formal titles are useful anchors, but not substitutes for context.

Best used for
  • Event chronology
  • Institutional context
  • Locating named record creators
Verify next

Contemporary correspondence, government or organizational records, oral histories and cited historical scholarship.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Ricoh”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Ricoh primary sources, Ricoh archive and Ricoh research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Ricoh”?
  2. Which voices are present, absent or mediated by the institution?
  3. Who created the surviving record, and for what administrative purpose?
Subject index

Search terms from this dossier

Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Ricoh” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.