[Leica] Leitz Record-Keeping

[Marc James Small <msmall@roanoke.infi.net>]

At 01:19 PM 1999-02-20 EST, Tom Abrahamson wrote:
> Leicas record keeping leaves a lot to be desired. The cameras are mechanical
>marvels, but the precision did not reflect in the paperwork. Leica was
>blissfully unaware that they were making collectibles and that future
>generations would drool over serial numbers. Often you have to go through the
>shipping documents to find out what was made, not the production lists.
> I have a 50DR Summicron that comes from a K 15S, its serial number indicate
>that it is made 2 years after they stopped production, it is in the 2 437 xxx
>range, the highest number recorded is otherwise 239x xxx. Again, the various
>authors of Leica books disagree on the origin of this lens, special order,
>mis-numbered or what?


Well, I have done a LOT of research into Zeiss-related number runs and
quite a bit on Leica's, and I will agree that a manufacturer doesn't always
now that precise records are going to be of grand interest a generation or
two later.  (We now have access to the Carl Zeiss Jena archives:  fifty
years of Bolshevik "workers' efficiency" means that we now have access to
two entire floors of the main building at Jena, with odd lots of documents
stashed where-ever, all out of order and, generally, not indexed at all.
It is a lifetime's work for a loving researcher.)

And, when Leitz became Leica and moved from Wetzlar to Solms, almost all of
the old records were tossed, precisely as had happened with the Zeiss Ikon
records at Stuttgart in 1972 (to Heinz Kuppenbender's dire regret!).
Fortunately, the most, if not the all, of these were taken by employees, so
we are now, slowly, trying to locate these mini-caches of paperwork from
the '20's to the '70's.

Marc

msmall@roanoke.infi.net  FAX:  +540/343-7315
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