[Leica] Schmidt Scrum for Leica Demos

[Cummer Family <cummer@asiaonline.net>]

The Leica distributer in Hong Kong held their first ever demo sale.
What a zoo! I had planned to go early at 10:30 - doors were supposed to open
at 11, but I got hung up at the office and didn't get in the door until
10:45 - there were 16 people already inside pawing over the merchandise -
and Schmidt, being ethnically egocentric had all instructions in Chinese
only so Sales Manager Martin Leung wasted my precious time explaining that
I only had 20 minutes to look and / or buy and then I would have to leave
the room to make way for others. Ken Lam from the LUG Dinner group was
there and said hello. There were three black R7's and one chrome and the
same number of R8's - some really beaten up R lenses - a 135 R 2.8 that
looked like it had been to war - one or two M6's TTL and one classic - and
an assortment of older
lenses - but it was hard for me to see evrything what with the pushing and
shoving around the table. I tried to buy a black R7 (HK$6,000) with packing
and also a 180 F3.4 APO Telyt R caught my eye (HK$6,000) with full packing
and as new, but by the time I got to the cashier another buyer had the R7 in
hand and although the invoice was being made out to me, he insisted on the
R7, and, of course, being a gentleman I stood aside. Martin Leung offered me
the Chrome R7 (to reward me for not making a scene, I guess) at a discount
(HK$5000) because I said I wouldn't take it at HK$6000 without packing and
so I bought it and the APO lens - which is smaller and just a bit faster
than the 80 - 200F4.0 I recently tried. None of the cameras had batteries
so you couldn't test any circuits and the R7 I have seems to work fine but
the battery check button doesn't work. (I have since learned from Dr. Yao
that there is no bc function on the R7 like on the R6.2 so my 7 is alright)
I don't have an instruction book but I told Ernest Cheung who was there
guarding the tables for Schmidt and is from their repair department that I
would be over on Monday to pick up an instruction book - (if they have
one). They had the M6 Green camera recently mentioned on the LUG but with
0.85 rangefinder, and also the 28mm F2.0 Asph as well as the new M6 winder
to look at and lots of literature. By now  (1 pm) I am sure that nothing is
left. An interesting experience but barely controlled chaos. Martin said
this was the first time they had tried such a sale and hopefully next time
it will be better organized.
Cheers
Howard.
To get canuck bucks divide by 5, for US greenbacks divide by 7.8