Re: [Leica] Another Leica story.

[Bernard <5521.g23@g23.relcom.ru>]

Oh my..... what a beautiful and sad story. Sad, both because of the
burnt down house and because of the cameras arriving later than the
remains of your friend.

Thank you,
Bernard.


InfinityDT@aol.com wrote:

> When I was about 12, my father knew a very elderly, extremely wealthy
> and
> *very* eccentric gentleman who had no family, drove a 40 year-old (at
> that
> time) Packard and owned a huge house which was full of relics of all
> sorts:
> Boxes full of new shirts still in the wrapping, rows of brand-new
> shoes,
> piles of unopened mail on the kitchen table with unknown numbers of
> uncashed
> dividend checks therein--you get the picture.  Included was a set of
> Leicas,
> 2 IIIg bodies and six lenses including a *screwmount* 35 Summicron and
>
> screw-thread *rigid* 50 Summicron.  These were still in their boxes
> and had
> not been used once.  The gentleman's eyesight was failing and he knew
> I was
> into photography so he gave the set to my father to let me examine,
> and said
> if I wanted it he'd sell it to me.  Well, my father figured that rich
> as the
> old fellow was, he meant to basically let me just keep it or maybe ask
> a few
> bucks for it just for goodwill, so after I'd had the Leicas for a
> couple
> months and was hopelessly in love with it, my father asked the man how
> much
> he wanted.  The reply was a figure slightly in excess of what a new
> (at that
> time) kit would have cost, so my father politely but hurriedly
> returned the
> Leicas to his acquaintance.  Six months later while the fellow was out
>
> shopping,  his house (Leicas and all) burned to the ground.
>
> But, in the spirit of "good-things-come-to-those-who-wait", about a
> year
> later I inherited a set of LTM Leicas from a family friend (not as
> "collectible" as the first set but of course that wasn't much of a
> passtime
> back then) and I have that kit to this day.   (I also still have my
> first set
> of Nikons which a friend  purchased for me in Tokyo on R&R near the
> end of
> the Vitenam war.  The box containing the brand-new FTn, F2 and 7
> lenses
> arrived stateside about a month after the box containing his body.
> Wouldn't
> trade those Nikons for Leicas.)
>
> DT