Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2011/05/16
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]I really liked the comparison to the Rebel volume..... Another way to look at this data is to track Serial Numbers by model year. It is very crude but will give you a fair assessment for this purpose.. The M6 started around 1.6M and ended around 3M. About 1.4M Serial numbers.... There were really only a few R cameras ( compared to M) made during the same time. Most of the cameras made were M6 ( of 1 or another version...) Taking half... 700K cameras is a fair guesstimate....even dividing that by half gives 350K M6 cameras made.... The M6 sold a LOT more cameras than the M3... If you want real hard data, Erwin published a list of the M serial numbers, including the M6 in some detail....you could add it up.. Frank Filippone Red735i at earthlink.net Leitz used to publish their production quantities but Leica Camera does not. Pre Solms there are the following:- Leitz M6 about 30,000 (production continued by Leica Camera) M4P 22,444 M4-2 16,100 (+100 gold plated...) M5 33,900 M4 59,000 M2 85,000 MP 449 M3 226,178 Interestingly the M3 sold about as much as the rest put together - so much for the myth that the M2 viewfinder was preferred, it carried over because it was -much- cheaper to make... To put these figures into perspective Canon sell about 250,000 digital rebel SLRs per month. FWIW, Frank ore information