[Leica] First M3's rewind gears, was: Solm's Lack of Quality

[Lucien <lucien@ubi.edu>]

Eric Welch wrote:

>If people don't think M3s broke soon out of the box 
>back in the 50s, they're sadly mistaken. 

It's true that Leitz had to redesign 3 times the rewind gears
during the first years of the life of the M3.
Be carefull if you own an earlier M3 wich still have the rewind
knob with the red line on it.  (Instead of 1 or better 2 dots)
- -The only red dot I like on a Leica.  ;-)
The 3 different indications on the rewind knob 
(red line, 1 dot or 2 dots) indicate different gears.
It's still possible the repair the second and third versions
with original parts (it was a few years ago anyway) 
but you will have to use the 1 dot version in order 
to repair the red line version.
It's very usual to find an earlier M3 with 1 red dot instead 
of a bar, even some prototype were changed and also the first 
one (nr.700.000).


Lucien