[Leica] Re: Gear I wish I'd kept.

[lrzeitlin at optonline.net (Lawrence Zeitlin)]

On Jul 5, 2007, at 10:36 AM, Marc wrote:

> At 10:42 PM 7/4/2007, Lawrence Zeitlin wrote:
>>
>
>> My Leica IIIc had a serial number below the 300,xxx range, indicating
>> it was made about 1940 or so. Not prewar for Germany, but prewar for
>> the US. But I bought it in 1950 from Claus Gelotte in Cambridge, MA.
>> So it was certainly postwar for the US, Germany, and me. The markings
>> were in German and it had the 1 cm baseplate tripod socket so I guess
>> it was "liberated" by some returning serviceman.
>
> Interesting.  The first IIIc was 360101.  Yours
> must have been some sort of ur-camera, the
> mythical missing versuchs-IIIc!  <he grins>  It's
> a shame you no longer have the camera, as it
> would be a big hit at Stan Tamarkin's next auction.
>
> Marc


You are certainly right about the serial number on my stolen Leica  
IIIc. I have records of the serial numbers, place of purchase, and  
price of every camera I have ever owned. Nothing beats an anal  
personality for record keeping. When I checked my records, I found  
that I was quite a bit off on the serial number. The little gray  
cells tend to lose track after 50 or so years. The actual number was  
361,691. I don't know where this puts it in the production run. Most  
likely it was made during the early years of WW2. There was a lot of  
dirt inside the camera when I got it, probably a mixture of  
battlefield dirt and ersatz coffee. It was the subject of my first  
self performed Leica CLA. Thank God the LTM Leicas are simple rugged  
machines. It worked well after my cleaning and I used it for 15 years.

As far as Adam Wagner's Leica Model H, Emil shows the patent number  
as 1,233,250. I assume it was the German patent. I was unable to find  
the equivalent US patent however I did locate the Canadian patent. It  
was assigned to Ernst Leitz GMBH. Clearly this implies that it was a  
"work for hire" produced as a condition of Wagner's employment rather  
than an independent project. While it is true that Leica had a  
dominant position in the expensive camera industry in 1965, by 1966  
it had fallen behind Nikon and by 1970 it was in the bottom 20% of  
the market. Leica completely missed the SLR surge, concentrating on  
the development of the M5 instead. With the benefit of 20/20  
hindsight it is easy to see that Leica should have brought out an  
affordable mass market camera to keep the name in front of the  
public. Perhaps it should have partnered with a lower cost supplier  
earlier. The CL was almost the ticket. I bought one in 1977 just as  
Leica was canceling the line. Allegedly the popularity of the CL was  
hurting the sales of the more expensive (read German made) cameras.  
So in my book Wagner was right. A well made Leica H, perhaps modified  
for full frame, could have competed head to head with the Rollei 35,  
one of the most successful small cameras ever made. But we shall  
never know.

Larry Z