RE: [Leica] number of black SL's made

[Jim Laurel <jplaurel@microsoft.com>]

I saw a very nice black SL body selling for $575 over at Glazers camera
supply (http://www.glazers.com) in Seattle.  "Russ" is the Leica rep there.

I almost bought this beauty myself...

> -----Original Message-----
> From:	Patrick G. Sobalvarro [SMTP:pgs@sobalvarro.org]
> Sent:	Tuesday, June 02, 1998 12:13 PM
> To:	leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us
> Subject:	[Leica] number of black SL's made
> 
> I've been thinking of getting another SL body, not because I need one,
> but because I'm a simple tool of our consumption-oriented capitalist
> society.  (Please.  You didn't think I was going to attempt to
> rationalize this, did you?)
> 
> In keeping with my usual practice (I use body color as a quick reminder
> of what film is in which camera when I'm out making photographs), since
> I already have a silver chrome SL, I thought of getting a black SL. 
> They show up often enough in photographs in back issues of Leica
> Fotografie.
> 
> However, to my distress, I find that there aren't so many up for sale as
> I might like, and those that are for sale seem to cost about 30% more
> than silver chrome bodies.  I wondered why this might be.  Neither
> Rogliatti nor Sartorius give numbers of black SL's versus silver chrome
> SL's.  Any idea where I might find this information?  If you were buying
> Leicas in the late sixties and early seventies do you remember if black
> chrome Leicaflex SL's were more rare than silver chrome ones?  (I was
> not in the market in those days, because my disposable income was
> usually exhausted after the ice cream truck made its rounds of our
> neighborhood.)
> 
> -Patrick
> 
> P.S. About six months ago I was offered a beat-up SL MOT at a fire-sale
> price.  Fool that I am, I didn't buy it.  Now I have something to feel
> glum about when I go to bed each night.