A little...33

[jc_braconi]

Advertisement (gone after registration)

The MD, catalog # 10101, issued in a regular production at serial number 1102501 in 1964 and lasted in 1966; during this period 3475 ex. were produced including 259 Post ex.

It has the same basic outline as the M1 but with no view/range finder and as its predecessor it was basically intended for use with the Visoflex housing for scientific and industrial applications or reproduction works with the Reprovit bench.

 

Here illustrated is a standard one with its original box, illustration leaflet and a bayonet mount focoslide with focusing ramp and straight viewfinder.

 

[Pecole]

The MD, catalog # 10101, issued in a regular production at serial number 1102501 in 1964 and lasted in 1966; during this period 3475 ex. were produced including 259 Post ex.

It has the same basic outline as the M1 but with no view/range finder and as its predecessor it was basically intended for use with the Visoflex housing for scientific and industrial applications or reproduction works with the Reprovit bench.

Some MD’s were supplied with, normally, a fixed focus Summaron 35mm f 2.8 lens to the German and some other telephone companies for meter recording, they are so called Post Cameras. 32 of them were produced in 24x27 format.

 

Here illustrated is a standard one with its original box, illustration leaflet and a bayonet mount focoslide with focusing ramp and straight viewfinder.

 

 

Sorry, my Dear Jean-Claude, but there is an error (common..) in your caption. The MD series NEVER INCLUDED A POST MODEL, for the simple reason that there has never been an MD Post, but an M3 Post. The production of the "so-called MD Post" started six years before the first MD appeared, and the latter is simply a successor - with different interior design - of the M3 Post. All that has been duly confirmed by the Swiss firm ALOS, the Leitz client who asked for an M3 version adapted for the Post systems, and documented in the Leica Historical Society of America's Viewfinder (by myself). Leitz later designed the MD based on the look of the M3 Post, but with a modenized internal architecture.

It seems very difficult to return to historical evidence after such a long period of error by even the most knowledgeable experts and authors (from Lager to van Hasbroeck to Laney)!

[luigi bertolotti]

Uhm... is there a visual evidence (photos...) that the Postkameras built during MD life, for instance, the 1141969 - 1142000 batch which I think is the one JC refers to, are indeed M3 based as the previous ones ? I mean, the "old" Postkameras M3 based, like the one recently seen referenced in another thread, do lack the VF/RF but of course have a distinctive M3 feature (the self resetting frame counter) which is absent into MD, whose frame counter is clearly M2-style: I would be curios to see the frame counter of one of the Postkameras of 65-66, to say, after MD intro but before MDa...

[Pecole]

Uhm... is there a visual evidence (photos...) that the Postkameras built during MD life, for instance, the 1141969 - 1142000 batch which I think is the one JC refers to, are indeed M3 based as the previous ones ? I mean, the "old" Postkameras M3 based, like the one recently seen referenced in another thread, do lack the VF/RF but of course have a distinctive M3 feature (the self resetting frame counter) which is absent into MD, whose frame counter is clearly M2-style: I would be curios to see the frame counter of one of the Postkameras of 65-66, to say, after MD intro but before MDa...

 

Dear Luigi, you raise an interesting point, that confirms my note : look at the "MD Post" nº 1141975 and 1141942 illustrated by Lager in Cameras, pages 240-241 : they are still M3-based cameras (self-resetting counter). More interesting : the two "MDa's" illustrated by Lager (#1286769 and 1286821) are ALSO WITH SELF-RESETTING COUNTER, even if with the M4-like crankled rewind. So what ?...

[luigi bertolotti]

Dear Luigi, you raise an interesting point, that confirms my note : look at the "MD Post" nº 1141975 and 1141942 illustrated by Lager in Cameras, pages 240-241 : they are still M3-based cameras (self-resetting counter). More interesting : the two "MDa's" illustrated by Lager (#1286769 and 1286821) are ALSO WITH SELF-RESETTING COUNTER, even if with the M4-like crankled rewind. So what ?...

 

Correct... MDa does have the self resetting counter... anyway, given the Lager's pics you quote, right to say that there aren't indeed MD Post, strictly speaking: only M3-Post and MDa Post: a photo of a Post with a non resetting frame counter would be a GREAT SURPRISE !!! ... I'm thinking to fake one by Photoshop... but the counter is more difficult to photofake than a s/n...