[Leica] Best camera deal ever

[marcsmall at comcast.net (Marc James Small)]

I have had a few good deals.

Back around 1993, a fellow member of my Army 
Reserve unit told me that they had a "Lieca" 
camera for $5 at the Fort Lee Thrift Shop, and 
would I be interested.  I figured that $5 was 
worth a risk, so he bought for me a IIIc (K) 
Leica.  I was stunned when he passed it on to me, 
and I was in a moral quandry.  I didn't 
particularly LIKE this guy, though I'd down him 
since he was in the Branch Basic Course after 
mine at Aberdeen in 1975.  But honesty seemed the 
order of the day.  I advised him of the real 
value of the camera and pointed out that I would 
use and vet the camera and would then sell it for 
at least a thousand dollars, and would he like a finder's fee?

He just said that the price was the price and so 
be it.  (I had been selected for promotion and he 
wanted a copy of my promotion packet and cover 
letter, I suspect.)  He reminded me that he 
collected WWII military vehicles and suggested 
that I pick up the next Command Car I found at a 
yard sale.  And the deal was sealed.

I had three weeks of great interest documenting 
this camera and pushing some rolls through it. I 
then called a buddy of mine, a dealer in 
Richmond, who immediately drove to Roanoke to 
drop twenty gorgeous hundred-dollar bills on my 
desk for that camera, bills I then took over to 
buy the 1984 Audi 4000S which is still my daily 
driver and which is the best car I have ever 
owned, and that's saying something.  He also 
scored a Contax-mount Amatol from me, a lens I 
have always regretted selling, but not all that 
much, and Jem Kime will probably find me another.

I know live nine miles or so from the Fort Lee 
Thrift Shop and I do have base privileges, but 
I've never been there though, I suppose, I should visit it.

I've had lots of other deals which worked really 
well with me but most of these are now sitting on my shelves.

One more short story.  Those of us interested in 
Leica and Zeiss lore had argued for years over 
the putative existence of the 1.5/7.5cm Carl 
Zeiss Jena Biotar in LTM.  One popped up, and 
Charlie Barringer scored it.  A few weeks later, 
Jim Williams -- known to many of us from Stephen 
Gandy's RF List -- offered to sell me his for 
$100 and a copy of the Zeiss book Charlie and I 
had written, and, truly, Robert was your 
uncle.  Two more have surfaced since then and I 
haven't a clue what this would bring at a serious 
auction. But it is not for sale, as it is a grand 
lens and on a good day comes close to my 1.4/75 Summilux.

And then there was the time I picked up a lens 
from the almost-mythic Zeiss Lens Collection for 
$5.  My son can worry about the disposal of that 
as this will pass to him as part of the Lares and 
Penates along with my father's dress saber.

Great deals are out there all the time.  You just 
have to adjust your karma to be looking out for such deals ...

Marc


msmall@aya.yale.edu
Cha robh b?s fir gun ghr?s fir!