Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1997/10/27
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On p.24 of Paul Schliesser's M article in PT he says that the 3 in M3 is
for the number of framelines. I had always assumed that Leitz had planned
three models from the start, and just took a few years to get them all in
production.
When you consider the similarity of the I, II, and III LSM models to the
original concept of the M1,M2 and M3, this makes sense. Their line would
continue to have a rangefinderless technical camera(I/M1), an "economy"
model lacking some features(II/M2), and the full featured flagship
camera(III/M3).
It might even be speculated that subsequent models would have been called
the M1/2/3b, M3c, etc. but by 1967 so much had changed that the multiple
models were ended and the numbering sequence changed to chronological with
the M4, etc.
I can't find any information in my books (Laney, Matanle/Classic Cameras,
old Lager paperbacks) about the origin of the numbering. Any other
information on this? just curious.
Nick Hunter