Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1998/02/21
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]On 21 Feb 98 at 17:16, Dan Cardish wrote: > Someone sent me a few more photographs of the camera. The strap > lugs are triangular, indicating an older M3, there is a screw > missing from the front of the camera between the viewfinder and > frames windows, indicating a later model M3, and the rewind knob > appears to have two red dots on it, also indicating a later model > M3. Further, the '128' numbering on the top of the camera doesn't > appear to be in the same format as the 'Ur' M3 that appears in > Rogliatti. > > All in all, a strange beast, if it is for real. Perhaps it has been > modified over the years. I now have these photographs too. In addition to what you said, it looks to me like the frame counter indicator is an outline, as on cameras after 740,000. Also, the internal part of the casing is not the shiny black of the first 600 M3's as Sartorius reports, but looks like the dull embossing he says is characteristic of later bodies. The pressure plate is not the glass of early M3's, but metal. The paint on the top plate is very thick, more than on other parts of the body. I think that removal of this paint would show an ordinary top plate from a third-type double-stroke M3 that has had its chrome removed and then was heavily painted to cover up what remained of the engraving. My guess is also that disassembly would show that this camera once had a frame preview lever that has been removed. - -Patrick