Leica I with Hektor - Super clean or fake/repaint?

[echorec]

Sorry if this is a stupid question - I have limited experience with very early Leicas.

I just bought this camera (pictures below) unseen on a local internet auction site. It looks very clean, maybe too clean...

What do you think - Is it original, fake, repainted or some changed parts? The bottom plate looks very new to me.

Thanks in advance,

Gunnar

[uwe zankl]

Hi

If it's real and in original condition than you got yourself a treasue there. And if it has been restored the job was done superbly. I do not know to much about LSM cameras yet but this one for sure beautiful. I hope for you it's real.

cheers
Uwe

[earleygallery]

Looks genuine to me too. Amazingly good condition, barely used I'd say. The problem with such a good example is, can you bear to use it too?

[thrid]

Looks real to me. I have never seen one of these in such clean condition. It looks like it was purchased and then sat on the shelf for the last 60-70 years.

That camera is worth some serious cash. Be nice to it. If I were you I would get it appraised at a reputable auction house, like Westlicht.

WestLicht Photographica Auction

This is a pretty rare camera to begin with and I have never seen one that clean.

[luigi bertolotti]

From the pics, I can see only three little oddities:

- The lettering "Nr." : usually it was " No" : can be a repaint
- The "20-1" on the time knob : long times were yet to come : should be "20" only : can have been replaced by a later component
- Usually, these firs items of Leica I standard had a 7mm "hole" in the back, uncovered by vulcanite : also this can reveal a re-covering witha new dress.

And... dismount the lens at look at the flange: it must have a little "O" engraved on the top (say,at 12 o'clock position), another distinctive of model I standard.

I do not think it's a fake, but a beautiful body of 1931, restored and repainted with someway a little unattention to some tiny details... but it's wonderful.

The lens stands apart... can you see its s/n ? It has the so called "expanded scale" not common but not so rare. The engraving has a number of variants (some are marked Hektor 1:2,5 F=5cm, others are like this but with a differently styled "f") but the one depicted "sounds good".

The pics are excellent: did you take them by yourself ?

[thrid]

Luigi, what makes you think it was repainted?

thanks

[luigi bertolotti]

Originally Posted by thrid

Luigi, what makes you think it was repainted?

thanks

Too brilliant the black, too white the white... and, above all, the fact that the time knob was surely replaced : this makes it think anyway to a restoration.

[harmsr]

I don't know enough about these real early LTM cameras, to comment but it is beautiful.

Congrats on the new camera.

Best,

Ray

[echorec]

Thanks for the replies!

Luigi, it does not have the "0" or the hole in the back of the vulcanite...

I can´t find the serial number of the lens but the inspection tag has two numbers on it. One is the camera number and the second is 34314, might be the lens number.

On page 28 in the Lager book I see a Hektor that looks like mine (except the feet scale) and it has the same type of "f".

Yes, I took the pictures myself: Elmarit-R 90mm from the 1960s on a 5D body.

[echorec]

Here is the inspection tag (also with "Nr")

[jc_braconi]

The first Leica model C with standardized lens mount introduced in 1931 at n°55404 most camera completed in 1931; factory records show production as late as n°99755.
the lens flange as the the standardized lens show an O (universal) engraved, at 12 o'clock on the camera flange.(J Lager)
6 screw retaining top and square accessory shoe are distintive.
You can see in good light if it is repainted or not :
the original paint is very flat; repainting shows little waves on flat surfaces.
Cheers
JC

[luigi bertolotti]

Originally Posted by echorec

Here is the inspection tag (also with "Nr")

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.

[earleygallery]

Just looking at my Leica pocket book, the rewind knob is the later type fitted to a 'Standard' model E camera (1932-50) but serial numbers started at 101001.

The model 1/C had a standard or non standard mount. The standard mount should be engraved with the '0' at 12 o clock on the face of the mount. If it is a non standard model then the lens will be matched to the body and "are engraved with the last 3 digits of the camera body serial number"

[str]

I think it is an original Leica, but it was resaured at Wetzlar:
«The "20-1" on the time knob» just was mentioned, also the
writing of Nr isntead of No. Look at the back of the camera,
there is missing the small aperture to check the focus.

str.

[luigi bertolotti]

Gunnar... as you see we are very interested in this camera... we are "history-minded", but, to tell the truth, I am also a lot curios about HOW MUCH .... is really a splendid item to have...
(but if you don't like to reveal... don't worry... is a right you deserve)

[telewatt]

Hi Gunnar,

the camera looks beautiful .. ...

...the camera is not in original contition ...but it is not a fake....in my opinion..

I can only say the same a Stefan, Luici and JC said.....

Leitz did a big service of restore and upgrade cameras...

are this nickel parts?..or chrome....

regards,
Jan

[telewatt]

..interesting is the "wrong" flash/findershoe...this is not the old one it is the later one 1931/32...like Leica Standard (E) or Leica II....

Could it be that the changed parts are of the "camera 62986"..?....ore 62986 is a Leitz List-Number in the fabrication-Book...

[str]

telewatt, your meaning, that the camera is composed
using two cameras may be right. The little shite of paper
with the names of inspection seams to be of about 1950 or
1960.

But it es really a very nice Leica.

str.

[thrid]

When did Leica stop offering upgrades for the LTM series? I'm pretty sure I have seen older bodies that were upgraded to IIIf spec.

Perhaps this camera was upgraded in the post war period? That may explain a lot of the more modern parts. They also would have plugged the hole in the back. Can you take a peek inside and see if there is a plug or something?

[jc_braconi]

Originally Posted by telewatt

..interesting is the "wrong" flash/findershoe...this is not the old one it is the later one 1931/32...like Leica Standard (E) or Leica II....

Telewatt, the accessory shoe is the one for Leica I C later model
J Lager I page 40