Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1999/07/08
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]At 04:58 PM 7/8/99 EDT, DT wrote: > >Likely that's all it needs unless it's been mistreated or stored in a hot >and/or humid place. My IIIf had the shutter curtain and rangefinder mirror >replaced about 25 years ago while my IIIa (12 or 13 years younger) has been >CLA'd but otherwise is still all-original, and I've spoken to several Leica >technicians who say that this is commonplace. The demarcation line, probably >not coincidentally, is WWII. Hmm. I suspect the Postwar cameras were better built than the Prewar. Leitz was really cash-poor in the '30's and had a small and ill-paid labour force on which to draw. After the War, Leitz happened to find the European headquarters for the American military PX system located nearby and this became a steady and quite large customer for fifteen years. Leitz was able to obtain better materials Postwar than Prewar, due to the German military not scarfing up all the best steel, bronze, brass, and optical glass, the sole exception being the vulcanite used for the covering, as this required petrochemicals which Germany had to buy with hard currency, an impossibility until 1950 or so. I have owned Prewar LTM cameras and have never found them as solidly built as the Postwar IIIc and IIIf models. Now, these guys are, as Jason Schneider recounts, "sexy devils". Marc msmall@roanoke.infi.net FAX: +540/343-7315 Cha robh bas fir gun ghras fir!