Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2001/02/14

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Subject: [Leica] Re: Motives for collecting
From: "Doug Richardson" <doug@meditor.demon.co.uk>
Date: Wed, 14 Feb 2001 11:00:14 -0000
References: <200102140801.AAA01315@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us>

george day sked:

How alone would I be, amongst Leica buffs, in finding that the
tastelessness of collecting Nazi mementoes extends to cameras?

The dour Scots compilers of my dictionary define a 'memento' as
"something kept or given as a reminder".

In the case of objects associated with political regimes which many
people find abhorent, I suppose the what makes the collecting of them
tastless or not is the motive behind the desire to have a reminder.
The motives of the person who purchases a buying a Luftwaffe-engraved
Leica to add to his collection of memorabilila of the Nazi era, are
probably different from those of a Leica collector who buys a similar
camera to join his collection of screw-mount Leitz cameras.  I
recently bought an 8.5cm f2 Sonnar (which not Nazi-engraved, but was
almost certainly built as part of German's wartime production
programme) because it's the the most affordable high-quality fast
screw-mount lens of that focal length.

At major camera fairs here in the UK, you can take your pick from the
fake "Nazi-engraved Leicas" being offered by East European dealers -
cameras which presumably were faked by citizens of a country which
suffered appalling loss of life during the Second World War. That
strikes me as tasteless, but it's possible that the persons who who
manufacture these fakes may be young enough for the war to be for them
just something which their parents (or even their grandparents) talk
about.

Regards,

Doug Richardson