[Leica] 90mm Tele-Elmarit at swap meet

[Dave Munroe <dmunroe@vcd.hp.com>]

Folks,

I noticed that KEH currently lists a 90mm chrome Tele-Elmarit
(Canadian) as being "rare" and has a price around $2700 for
it.  Now I'm wondering if I passed up a "bargain", since just
last Saturday I passed up one of these at a local swap meet;
it was offered for $595.

I'd already spent a bit more than I should have (my fondness
for pristine F2 Photomics has now been quenched) and I was just
wandering around after having already spent five (5) hours at
the swap meet.  In my experience over the last 10 years or so,
of the two photo swap meets we have every year, this particular
meet has always had a disproportionate amount of junk, viz. broken
or badly damaged equipment.  This year was a bit of a surprise:
there were two Leica M3's for sale in great shape for under $700.
One was a double-stroke that looked very clean and had no surface
defects.  Having three M bodies already, I was tempted but decided
to pass and let someone else get a nice camera.  The other M3 was
also clean aside from some very minor scuffing on the top plate.
The bottom plate had a clear plastic cover on it!  I am not joking!
Did M3's come with this?  What did surprise me, was that in winding
the shutter, the rewind knob turned.  There was film in it!  The
seller said "yes, there are some nice mountain photos in there".
Odd that he would sell it that way.  I passed on that, too.

I came to the Tele-Elmarit.  Up until then, I'd been thinking
about getting a nice new chrome 90mm Summicron.  The Tele-Elmarit
looked nice: very compact, clean, sharp lettering.  The aperture
ring was rough to turn, however (not bad, just not up to the usual
Leica feel).  Looking at the blades when closed down to f/16, I
could see bright areas.  I don't know if aperture blades are
lubricated or not, but it's apparent that they'd been used quite
a bit.  Anyway, I had no idea how much a chrome Canadian Tele-Elmarit
was worth or whether it was rare or not.  I passed on it because of
the feel and look of the aperture blades.  Since I saw the KEH ad,
I've been wondering a bit more about these lenses.

- -Dave