Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2000/12/12

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Subject: [Leica] Rapid Load Kit
From: Marc James Small <msmall@roanoke.infi.net>
Date: Tue, 12 Dec 2000 13:20:46 -0500

At 06:23 PM 12/12/2000 +0100, Stephen Holloway wrote:
>They haven't been made for years but are available on the used market. (Mine 
>was new old stock still in its box - probably drives collectors mad that I 
>use it).

Absolutely not.  These things are almost always found as "NOS".  This was
one of the great Disasters of Leitz production, as the kit a) answered a
question no one had asked and b) didn't work worth a damn.  Hence, no one
bought them.  So, immense quantities of these appear from time to time as
camera stores clean out their basements (generally, when they are being
bought out by a chain ... )

I am an M3 freak but the rapid-load kit is just a simple loser.  The nice
part about the conventional methodology of the M3 is that it is POSITIVE
loading.  As with LTM cameras, if you keep to the basic M3 technology, you
KNOW the film is properly loaded.

Back in the early 1960's, this kit was laughed at as the "Never-Load" Kit,
due to the high frequency of problems with it.

Buy a Never-Load Kit on E-Bay.  Put it on your shelf of Leica Incanabula.
Continue to load your M3 as the Gnomes of Wetzlar intended.  It works.

Marc

msmall@roanoke.infi.net  FAX:  +540/343-7315
Cha robh bas fir gun ghras fir!

Replies: Reply from "A.H.SCHMIDT" <horsts@primus.com.au> (Re: [Leica] Rapid Load Kit)