Re: Notching film gates

[Welch <Bill.Welch@pressroom.com>]

As Ted has pointed out to us before, this group certainly is an education. I 
have you folks to thank, or perhaps to blame.

	After reading Fred's story about notched film gates, I went back to my local 
camera shop and took another look at an M4 that I had seen with notches. The first time 
I hadn't known what it was I was seeing. Now I saw the camera in a new light. All the 
caked on tape residue, scrapes, scratches and notches that made it so ugly the first 
time now seemed to represent its personality and history.

	Well, you know the rest of this story. I began bargaining, trading and cajoling, 
and now have the M4 sitting by my desk here. I've just come out of the darkroom after 
developing a test roll of Tri-X, and it seems to have performed flawlessly. I'll shoot 
some chromes tomorrow to check out the shutter.

	As for the notched gates, there is a series of three long flat notches and one 
round short one on the upper left, running half-way down the side of the frame. A 
corresponding series is on the lower right side. The result of this is that on the 
negatives, each frame seems to be interlocked with the next one -- a series of notches 
from the first frame rests beside the series of notches on the bottom. It's a very 
distinctive pattern. With the Super Angulon 3.4, which sends light spilling around the 
gates anyway, the notches actually touch or overlap. I wonder how my E-6 lab guys will 
handle that on Monday! I'll have to warn them.

	A quick check of Ben's site and the Leica books reveals this is a very early M4. 
Its serial No. suggests it was among the first 1,500 off the Wetzlar line in 1967, the 
first year of production. I have no idea what that means, nor do I care about its 
collectibility, except that it suggests to me a long and well-used life. It still has 
some gunk on the back and is missing a little vulcanite, but an hour's care cleaned it 
up very nicely. 

	Anyhow, I'm delighted, and thanks for the thread that showed me the light, so to 
speak. As a result of this, I'm going to have to unload a piece or two of equipment to 
keep the bank account afloat. If anyone is interested in a real nice M2, let me know.

Bill Welch