Re: [Leica] Re: WG: Here is Part 1 again! Best, Tom A - Part 1 a

[TTAbrahams@aol.com]

In a message dated 4/23/00 11:30:45 AM Pacific Daylight Time, 
jbcollier@home.com writes:
<< Tom could you please post part 1 in two parts so it gets through? If I may 
be so bold, how about 1a  and 1b. 
 John Collier >>
John,
Here goes:
Part 1a)
Subj:    Bessa-R to Bilbao     (Part 1- Long)  
Date:   4/21/00 8:02:17 PM Pacific Daylight Time
From:   TTAbrahams@aol.com
Reply-to:   leica@topica.com
To: leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us
CC: leica@topica.com

At last I have recuperated from the combination of flu and serious 
photographic visitors. Fellow LUGgers Martin Howard and Arthur Krick (U.K.) 
visited with us for a while in early to mid-April and we also had the spring 
Swap meet with Ted and Irene Grant and Henning Wulff in attendance. Great fun 
but it has left very little time for writing travel stuff and making 
Rapidwinders! We have a simple rule for visitors, you want to eat, you cook, 
but on the other hand the host provides processing for the black and white 
films that tends to pile up. It is great to have guests that actually take 
pictures and I think that we shot about 50-60 rolls between us in a couple of 
weeks so the darkroom got a good workout too. It has also meant that some of 
the stuff I shot in Europe in March is still in its undeveloped stage (only 
15-20 rolls or so).
 Tuulikki and I left Vancouver at the end of February and arrived in London 
March 1st. To set the tone for the trip, there was a small LUG meet at 
Truckles in the Pied Bull Yard, only 8 of us, but a rather interesting crowd; 
Johnny Deadman, Mike Stone, Julian Thomas, Frank Dernier, Alex Brattell and 
Arthur Krick to spend a highly enjoyable evening talking cameras, pictures, 
books and, of course, commenting on non-present LUGgers! Frank Dernier 
brought his Konica Hexar RF and I had the Bessa-RF along, so everybody could 
do direct comparisons. The consensus seemed to be that the Konica is well 
built, large, heavy on the electronics and pricey. The finder is surprisingly 
good, at least up to 75mm, after that it becomes rather useless. The Bessa-R 
is lighter weight, cheaper and a bit noisy on the release; the Konica has an 
"advance" noise after each exposure that I find irritating. I think it is 
very much a personal preference, which of the two cameras one would use as an 
alternative to a M-camera
 Next day, at some godawful time in the morning we caught the bus to Dover, 
ferry to Calais and picked up our rental car, a very small, green Citroen 
Saxo (the entire engine is slightly larger than 1 cylinder of my Chrysler New 
Yorker here!). It did have 4000 km on it when we picked it up and we added 
another 8500 in 30 days! From Calais we headed to Gent/Belgium for an early 
dinner with Lucien and his friend Jack. Gent is a classic "old" town, narrow 
street, confused street signs and names and you are forever being chased by 
very large trams with clanging bells. The Citroen tires would fit comfortably 
in the tram-tracks, but I had no idea how to operate the switches that makes 
you change directions! There is also a plan underfoot to confuse tourists and 
locals equally by changing street names, one-way streets and the introduction 
of large granite blocks as barriers to thwart any attempt by anybody to find 
anything. We persisted and only 15 minutes late we met with Lucien and Jack 
and had our dinner, camera-talk, delivery of glossy black Rapidwinder for 
Lucien's Millenium M6. Lucien was heading off with his family for 
ski-vacation, but Jack and we made plan to see each other on the following 
Sunday at the Houten Swap meet in Holland. We managed to find our way out of 
Gent, thanks Lucien 'pour la pilotage" and headed for Rotterdam and the NHS 
meet (this stands for Nikon Historical Society, you know that camera that 
they build in Japan, large, lots of batteries and we occasionally lust for 
when we need longer lenses and multiple flash set-ups!). I have been a NHS 
member for years (yes, now the secret is out and "My name is Tom and I have 
several Nikons…) and I always wanted to go to their biannual meet. Well, at 
least the NHS and LHSA has one thing in common, they pick hotel in the 
darndest places! The Rotterdam Airport Hotel is weird, corridors long enough 
that I think our room was actually in Amsterdam. As usual when you arrive at 
these gatherings, head for the bar that's where they all hang out so we did 
and there they were! The NHS is a smaller group than LHSA but there are a lot 
of members in common and we all exchanged secret handshakes and swore each 
other to secrecy about our memberships. Oh, it was pouring down, wind was 
howling and the drive from Gent to Rotterdam was interesting, particularly as 
every truck in Holland was hell-bent on acquiring a green Citroen as a hood 
ornament! 
 On the Friday morning the NHS crowd was bussed to a secret location, the 
secrecy consisted of the fact that none of us know how to pronounce the place 
and most of us are still unable to pinpoint exactly where we were. Here we 
were fed with coffee, sandwiches and sweet buns (both the Belgians and the 
Dutch consider any time spent not eating a waste of time, very sensible 
people!) and we also had the chance to see the absolute best collection of 
Leica Prototypes (and some very rare Nikon rangefinders stuff) that I have 
ever seen. Danny, the owner of this collection has amassed a rather unique 
collection of both early and post-war Leica prototypes. There were stuff 
there that I had only heard about, but never seen and my favourite piece 
(apart from the early chrome M4P with a very early chrome Rapidwinder on it!) 
was one of the two "Snap-Shot Elmars" made after WW2. We all happily drooled 
on the glass cabinets and tried to pick out favourites and I think that Danny 
deserves great thanks for sharing his collection with us. The location of the 
"show and tell" was rather sombre; it was close to a tombstone manufacturing 
facility and one of the LHSA/NHS members asked, " When I go, could I get a 
tombstone made in the shape of the Mountain Elmar?" Danny answered deadpan" 
Of course, but would you prefer with hood or without?". After this feast of 
collectibles we went to Agfa's film manufacturing facility and ate (at least 
1-1/1/2 hours had past and we must be hungry by now, according to the 
hosts!), no pictures allowed inside so it is best left to your imagination 
(and it was mainly polyester base for X-ray film anyway), after this a short 
detour to a photographic museum with some interesting exhibits and then a 
quick stop in Breda were the entire busload walked around and also descended 
on the local Nikon store. The staff looked terrified when about 40 people 
armed to their teeth with cameras filled the store! Of course some of us went 
to a local cafe and had coffee and cookies, after this we were bussed right 
back to the hotel where, you guessed it, we had dinner!(to be continued in 
Part 1 b) 
Tom A