Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1998/05/09
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Gary - Just as a matter of trivia, my SOOZI was made in 1958 - s/n 1580243. If yours is #147xxxx, then it would be one of the 3 dozen ( 9 LTM & 27 "M") extremely rare 1957 production lenses. Mine was sold to Van Hasbroeck in London for $2500 and in conversation with him, he told me that one of the many errors in Laney's book pertained to the 1957 SOOZI's in which he wrote had a non-detachable head. He was wrong as the head does detach but what he meant was that it cannot be then attached to the Visoflex like the later ones can;also they all had painted hoods and caps, as they were aluminum rather than brass and unlike the Summarex, were produced in both LTM & "M"; the Summarex's were all made in LTM and an adapter was added later. In any case - what you have is a very rare lens !!!! Skal, Marvin =============================================================== In a message dated mm/08/98 10:58:22 PM Pacific Daylight Time, datamaster@humboldt1.com writes: > > > The presence of the red mark is the first question from a well-informed > collector, since apparently Leica themselves adapted many thread-mount > SOOZI's to be a bayonet mount lens, adding their own red dot. Mine has no > bayonet index mark at all. There was a little residue on the threads when I > took off the adapter 25 years after I bought the lens. It could have been > some glue that a user or dealer applied to tighten the adapter, or maybe > Leica originally glued a few without adding the index mark. That would make > an interesting point for a historical collecting discussion - Did Leica > ever sell the first 90mm Summicron as a bayonet lens without adding the > index mark? Since mine has the 147 serial number batch, it appears to be > among the first few ever made. > > Gary Todoroff > >