[Leica] Red dots.

[lrzeitlin at gmail.com (Lawrence Zeitlin)]

I'm not sure which Leicas were the first to sport red dots. All I know is
that Leica fans made fun of them as useless decorations when they first came
out. Sort of like earrings on a pig. And the Leica company didn't treat them
as a big deal either.

I recall visiting the Leica headquarters in New Jersey to get my M3
rangefinder aligned. Those were the days when Leica service was very good.
While I waited for the technician to do it, I had a chat with the manager. I
asked about the red dots.

"Would you like a couple?" he asked. He reached into his desk drawer and
pulled out a roll of metallic red dots with adhesive on the back, tore off a
strip of four or five, and handed them to me. Red dots were everywhere then.
I bought a set of Trinovid binoculars and there were red dots both on the
glasses and on the plastic case they came in. I have a red dot on my old
Leica Digilux Zoom (ne Fuji), a 1.3 megapixel wonder.

It wasn't until just a couple of years ago that red dots became object of
desire.

Larry Z