Quote:
Originally Posted by echorec
Here is the inspection tag (also with "Nr")
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34314 cannot be the number of a lens only... lenses started their own numbering around 80.000... but the inspection card is intriguing and i can make a hypotesis:
34314 was a Leica I FIXED lens, by sure, and maybe with Hektor :1330 Leica I (model A) had a fixed Hektor, but usually they are engraved "1:2,5 F=50mm".
34314 may have been sent to the factory that converted it in interchangeable lens mount, keeping (or not, I suspect) the original Hektor. This could explain the lack of the 7mm "hole" in the back (which served for some tools to make the fine adjustment of flange-focal plane distance at the factory, they were the first times in which this distance was strictly standardized, giving infact birth to the "Leica Standard") and also the lack of the "O" and the unusual time knob... can be the modification was carried on at a time when "O" engraved flanges weren't more built, and the time knobs were standardized also with the "20-1" engraving (the same happens with Leica Standards of '30s and even '40s... no long times but knob marked "20-1").
The question of the "new" serial number is strange... usually, factory converted Leicas kept the same s/n... many examples are depicted in the books: the practice brought to strange items like Leica IIIa with 5-digits number and so; but I think it can be explained in some way... maybe the 62986 was not alloted and they used it... or maybe the camera with that number went destructed... I seem to have read somewhere of similar situations.