old metal

[Kari Eloranta <kve@dopey.hut.fi>]

On my way to work in the morning stumbled to a place here in Vienna of
some interest to luggers I suppose. The Leica shop on Westbahnhof str. 

What a place! I thought the serious Leica dealers in NYC had some stock
in old metal but this is different order of magnitude. Indeed, nowhere,
not on London or Paris or elsewhere have I seen anything comparable.

Uncountably many screwmounts and M's from M-1 and early military editions
to Brucker M-6. Among there two mint chrome M4-P's which if I recall
right was considered somewhat rare (the guy swears they are original).
Here yours for mere 26500 austrian  shilligns. Caseloads of Leicaflexes
(SL, SL2 anything, you name it) mostly in immaculate shape. Next to them a
caseload of Alpas, next to that a bunch of Contarexes and rarer Zeiss',
next to that a handful of Nikon RF's, some of them SP's, benath them
Kwanon screwmounts... Somewhat itchy: Leica apprently makes UR-Leicas -
a replica for a mere 15000 ATS, that is some $1200 or so. Lenses abound
and I didn't even check them except some meter long Telyts you couldn't
possibly miss. Great variety of external finders and all sorts of other
accessories. And then all the Hassys and Lindhofs and so on and so
forth...

Of course they had all the latest bodies and lenses but the only item I
did check was the 35 Summicron-M ASPH. The optical improvements have been
reported here so let me just comment that it is not as compact and a lot
heavier than the previous model. Given that many have chosen Summicron
35 for street use for its compactness and lightness the new one might have
a problem. I wouldn't trade my previous generation in. Seems like the
natural step on from the 35 Summicron is the Summilux ASPH.

Regards,


Kari Eloranta