Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2002/05/01

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Subject: Re: [Leica] Shintaro
From: TTAbrahams@aol.com
Date: Wed, 1 May 2002 13:10:42 EDT

 Being an owner of probably the largest collection of Shintaro painted 
cameras I feel I should wade into this discussion. - Shintaro's work is on 
par with the best of the other "painters". There is an other painter/restorer 
in Japan that can do a better job, but at a price  (US$1200 for a M2/M3), but 
his work is  strictly for show as the paint is soft enough to rub off. Over 
the years Shintaro and I have conspired to make a lot of specials, including 
hammertone grey, US Army Blue/grey, Ivory hammertone, black IIIF's etc and 
the paintjob has always been of a quality that compares to or exceeds the 
Leica original paintjob. I know that there are other painters of cameras that 
only sprays over the chrome and leave it like that (including somebody back 
east who powder coats bodies black over the chrome). Leica was never that 
good at painting the M's. I am old enough to have bought new M2's and M3's in 
black paint from the factory in the 60's and these paintjobs would not have 
met with our standards today. One of the ways of spotting a fake paint M is 
usually the fact that the paintjob is too good. Leicas paint used to react 
with the brass and cause bubbling of the paint almost instantly.
 When Shintaro started painting cameras about 6 years ago, we experimented 
with various finishes. Initially the finish was quite glossy and very hard. 
Later he refined the process to incorporate the "semi-gloss" finish that 
closely matched the original M finish (of the M2/M3 and M4 - the finish on 
the Millenium/LHSA/Dragon TTL is different. It is glossier than the original 
M paint). Every camera he paints involves removing the existing chrome and 
underlaying nickel and polishing the brass to a high gloss finish. This is 
painstaking work and also involves the use of some rather aggressive 
chemicals. The only item that I know that Shintaro paints black over chrome 
is lenses. Some of the early Leica M-lenses are a mixture of brass and alloy 
and if you use chemical removal of the chrome, you would also dissolve the 
alloy! There is a precedence for this as Leica used to supply 50/1,4 
Summiluxes in black paint and these were simply painted over chrome and I 
have had 35/2 which had the same paintjob, black paint over chrome. These 
lenses were supplied new from the factory in that finish! 
 A couple of the cameras that Shintaro made up for me had "brassing" 
incorporated into the original scheme. My favourite was a black Nikon S2. 
Shintaro painted it and then studied other black S2 and "mapped out" the 
brassing on them and matched it on mine. I have a Nikon SP in "Ugly-" 
condition that I am sending to him for a similar treatment this summer. 
 Shintaro is a working photographer and regards cameras as tools, not as 
collectibles and I agree with him. He is not making "fakes" that can be 
passed off as overvalued collectibles. He is providing a service to M-users, 
who, like me, prefers the tactile feel of black paint with nicely brassed 
edges to a black chrome or bright chrome finish.
Tom A


Tom Abrahamsson
Vancouver, BC
Canada
rapidwinder.com
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