Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1999/11/21
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]At 09:05 AM 11/21/1999 -0700, John Collier wrote: >One of you chaps or >chappettes quoted an earlier start for the M3 and I was wondering the >source of the info. I am the "chap" who posted that the DOF scales began with the M3 at 919,251, while the M2 was introduced at 926,001. My source is Laney's LEICA COLLECTORS GUIDE. The problem here seems to be the attitudes of "collectors". Both Van Hasbroeck and Lager spend page after page discussing the "null-serie" M3's but devote about a long paragraph to discussing the internal changes which occured during the 12-year production run of the M3. (To a collector, EXTERNAL differences are quite important; internal changes are almost meaningless.) Laney began the tale that the M2 introduced the DOF scales, but it seems certain that they first appeared on the M3 at 919,251 shortly before the M2 was first marketed. (Unless, of course, the M2 "jumped the line" and was brought out before its serial number range would indicate was the case. This is certainly not impossible with any German camera company, where, to the horror and frustration of researchers, serial-number runs are matters of convenience all too often, and not index-marks of chronology.) Marc msmall@roanoke.infi.net FAX: +540/343-7315 Cha robh bas fir gun ghras fir!