Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1996/06/05
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]At 11:34 PM 05/06/96 +0200, you wrote: >Hello Reinhard, >Yes, you are correct! I just examined my wife´s Mini II, and it has the same >type of serial number on the bottom plate as M and R-cameras. So, Leica has >mixed up all their cameras types! > >Best regards, Hans > > Sorry, but the serial numbers are not mixed up. According to the "Leica Pocket Book", Leica serial numbers started at #100 in 1923, and have run consecutively since. New models do not start at 1 again. Instead, production runs for various models are allocated blocks of serial numbers. When enough cameras are produced to use up all the allocated numbers, another block is allocated. This way, cameras with consecutive serial numbers are often completely different models. This also applies to cameras manufactured in Portugal, Canada and Japan. For instance #1648750 was an R4s made in 1984, while 1648751 was M-2 made in 1985). But #1649521 was an M4P made in 1984 despite the higher serial number! For interest, the smallest allocation block I've spotted is #1273922-25 for post camera (I'm unsure the basic model of which this is a variant) with a 24x27mm frame. Production run of 3! Hope this helps. ----------- David Young: youngs@IslandNet.com This life is a test. It is only a test. If this were an actual life, you would have been given further instructions as to where to go, and what to do.