[Leica] Re: Mystery Leica?

[LRZeitlin@aol.com]

Can anyone in the LUG help me solve a small mystery? My son is an account
executive for NCR and was involved in setting up automatic teller machines for
the Japanese Sumimoto bank. One of bank executives, knowing that my son was a
camera collector, gave him a "mystery" camera that the bank owned. My son
asked me to identify it and I am at a loss to give him an answer. 

The camera is an SLR with an all black polycarbonate body about the size of an
M series Leica. A red Leitz (not Leica) medallion is fixed to the front of the
mirror housing. There are no manufacturer's identifying marks on the body. The
focal plane shutter is a metal blade device, probably made by Copal. The
camera is both automatic and manual with two programs and a self timer. The
lens mount is complex with a stainless steel adaptor plate with a Leica SLR
flange taking what appears to be an early R series lens which in turn fits a K
mount on the camera body. The adaptor can be removed and K mount Pentax lens
fitted. Lens automation is complete with either lens. Externally the camera
appears to be a modified Chinon CP-5 but there is no indication whatever
identifying the maker.

Inside the camera there are the engraved words "E. Leitz - versuch
#549.73990-3". My son told me that when he received the camera there was a
paper sticker inside with handwritten Japanese characters which he loosely
translated as "engineering test sample." A date 5/4/84 was also written on the
sticker.

My first thought was that the camera was a phony destined for the Japanese
collector's market, but my son assured me that the bank executive was sincere
and would have lost considerable face as well as lucrative business if a
deception was discovered. My second thought was that it indeed was an
engineering development sample, commissioned by Leitz during the early '80s as
a possible lower cost replacement or auxiliary to the R-3. I know that Leitz
did enter into a number of negotiations with other manufacturers during that
period, most notably Minolta for contract manufacturing (i.e the Leitz/Minolta
CL) in order to offset high German production costs.

Does anyone have any information or rumors about this? Are there any other
crypto-Leicas around, unacknowledged illegtimate children of Wetzlar?

The camera takes fine pictures. It would have been a good addition to the
Leica line.

Please respond by e-mail as well as posting to the board. I'm several weeks
behind in reading the LUG material and at the rate the volume of information
is increasing, I may never catch up. 

Larry Zeitlin
LRZeitlin@aol.com