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Thank you Wilson … i'm aware that Malcolm Taylor can take a long time which is why I'd prefer not to ask him. I'm looking for a company which can offer a swift turnaround  i.e. complete the task asap. Hoping there is a small UK company willing to work on a single lens element. 

dunk 

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Dunk, 

I don't think apart from Malcolm there is anyone currently in the UK who can do this. I would suggest phoning Cooke Optical in Leicester and asking them. They will know if there is anyone. With my Reporter and motor drive IIIa, Malcolm was the only option, as nobody else in the world has the expertise or parts to repair these. I have heard very good things about P+S Technik in Ottobrun, Germany but I suspect they might be quite expensive. They specialise in cine lens manufacture and repair but can polish and re-coat any lens element. Given that the cine folk always want everything yesterday or the day before, I would guess their turnaround will be fast. 

Wilson

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Cooke use another firm in Leicester to do repairs on older lenses (https://www.truelens.co.uk) but they too are really into high end movie lenses and I suspect that they would be far too expensive to use for a 80mm Planar.

Rule of thumb for selling used equipment in need of work is to sell it as is! The retail cost of repairs can very rarely be recouped by an enhanced sale price. As it happens I have a friend who recently asked me to sell a Hasselbad outfit he was left a few years ago. Nice gear, but old and very much 'enjoyed' with sluggish shutters and almost certain need of new light traps and so on. I basically looked online to find the minimum prices for dealers supplied, warranted items which were similar. It really didn't take long to figure out that the price of standard servicing of two bodies and four lenses would exceed the lowest dealer price for similar items! So I talked to some dealers and have one coming to look at the stuff. The suggested price I told my friend is very low but in all honesty its only by accepting a very low price that its likely to sell. Even on ebay it would have to be described as 'not working', as sluggish shutters and light leaking cameras and backs can hardly be sold as anything else. Sold listings suggested better prices were unlikely. So a dealer who can get repairs made at trade prices can breathe new life into such cameras economically, and offer a warranty too.

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Paul, 

Sadly Antiques Road Show has led to folks expecting unrealistic prices for their stuff. I occasionally used value vintage camera collections, especially if they are Leica equipment but given the problems this has caused with people not paying my fee or sticking to the agreement I made with them, I am very reluctant to do this now. People think that old Leica = big money and cannot understand that a ratty old IIf with rotted blinds, dings, missing chrome and vulcanite etc etc, has effectively nil or a negative value. Ditto a  scratched, uncoated 3.5 Elmar with stuck diaphragm. 

Wilson

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1 hour ago, wlaidlaw said:

Sadly Antiques Road Show has led to folks expecting unrealistic prices for their stuff.

And unrealistic ebay prices don't help either. Looking at 'Sold Listings' is more realistic, but many seem to take the current items prices as being obtainable, which many are not. And just having 'Leica' on an item is no guarantee of value. I have a large Leica Copy Stand upstairs which I use for copying artworks for people. Its solid, fabulously made, and very heavy - and its last attribute was why I paid only £5 on ebay for it!

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11 hours ago, wlaidlaw said:

Dunk, 

Malcolm Taylor did exactly this job some years ago, on a Contax 35-70 lens for me, which had been badly scratched by Johnsons Photopia, when I sent it to them for adjustment (they were the Contax repair agents at the time but completely hopeless), as it was not parfocal on zooming. However Malcolm takes his own time. He has had my 250FF Reporter and motor drive IIIa plus 2 Summars (a chrome and a nickel) since before Christmas. I am afraid to phone him to discuss progress.

Alan Starkie (Cameraworks-UK) will be doing this in the future, as he is rebuilding a high frequency vacuum sputtering machine, which will be able to do multi and hard coating. I don't know the estimated finish date for this project. He re-polished the front element of my grandfather's 5cm Hektor with excellent results but of course, that is uncoated. 

Wilson

I also had an unsatisfactory Johnsons Photopia experience when they returned a Mamiya 7 65mm lens following 'repair' . When the Mamiya 7 outfit was subsequently sold I noticed that the lens returned to me was not the lens I'd sent to them … it had a different serial number … and thus did not match the box SN. Johnsons Photopia went into administration in September 2018 and was initially managed by the administrators - but has now gone into liquidation https://www.thegazette.co.uk/notice/3243480 .  

dunk

Edited by dkCambridgeshire
typo
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1 hour ago, pgk said:

And unrealistic ebay prices don't help either. Looking at 'Sold Listings' is more realistic, but many seem to take the current items prices as being obtainable, which many are not. And just having 'Leica' on an item is no guarantee of value. I have a large Leica Copy Stand upstairs which I use for copying artworks for people. Its solid, fabulously made, and very heavy - and its last attribute was why I paid only £5 on ebay for it!

There are well known dealers in the UK who regularly over-value s/h Leica items. One in particular, part of a well known 'chain', often lists Leica items at inflated prices … but also very often  significantly reduces the price within a month to enable a sale. Dealers have to operate at decent margins but when they reduce s/h Leica items so frequently, they create the impression of attempting to 'fleece' the less knowledgable Leica enthusiasts and the 'passing by' tourists . Given their so frequent and necessary s/h Leica price reductions, they (the manager) should consider offering the Leica cameras and lenses at more realistic prices in the first place … thus improving cash flow and the store's (i.e. manager's) reputation. 

And Leica forum members do not have to look very far to see other inflated s/h Leica prices … which fail to sell. 

dunk 

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  • 1 month later...

Alan Starkie has finally finished my M7. It had myriad problems, almost certainly caused by a very poor previous repair or service or just maybe like my first M7, it was very badly built to begin with. It was not helped by Leica refusing to sell spare parts to third party repairers. I had to beg them for a new motor drive shaft/intermediate gear spindle by writing a long letter to the CEO. All that delayed things by a few months. As the previous repair or the build had misaligned the shutter electromagnets and other shutter components, the shutter timing was off by a huge margin, 1/1000 was timed at 1/500. This explains the over-exposure I was getting on reversal. It is also probable that the various misalignment issues caused the excess load, which led to the fatigue failure of the motor drive shaft. We feared the EPROM which controls the shutter timing could be off but checking it with a recording oscilloscope showed the pulse timing was correct. Notwithstanding the many hours Alan worked on it, he charged me his standard repair + CLA charge which included a recover with Aki-Asahi 4008. He must have made a considerable loss on this work. I will collect it on a one day trip to the UK in two weeks time, when I am delivering a car and flying back the next day. After six months away, I am much looking forward to getting it back. The next two jobs Alan has from me should be far more simple: A straightforward CLA on my M4-P and Winder M4-2 and a CLA on my SS-M3 and hopefully improve a tiny ding on its top cover (looks like a blunt centre punch mark). 

When I spoke to Malcolm Taylor recently, he had not really started on my 250FF other than a quick strip down to assess what parts are needed and has not started either on my motor drive IIIa's CLA. 

Wilson

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5 hours ago, wlaidlaw said:

It was not helped by Leica refusing to sell spare parts to third party repairers. Wilson

Dear Wilson,

I think you might be being a bit hard on Leica.  The official appointed repairers are required to train staff and carry significant inventory to be licenced, whereby I presume pursuant to an agreement Leica provides parts only to those officially appointed.  As you have probably experienced it is the same in the motor industry.  Whenever possible I have sent my cameras and lenses to Wetzlar/Solms/Wetzlar and have always received the best of treatment at reasonable prices.

Yours, Hektor

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Hektor, 

The only "official" film M camera repair centre is Wetzlar. Nearly every film camera bill from there seems to be over €800 + VAT, as that appears to be their basic CLA charge. Initially I thought the M7 problem was just a jammed shutter release shaft and did not want to pay €800 for that. Even such well known repairers as Malcolm Taylor, who does work on Leica's own museum items (Oskar Barnack's cine camera etc), is complaining about Wetzlar being difficult and erratic over spare parts. This is something I feel very strongly about. I think Leica's practice on spare parts is totally unreasonable and does a major disservice to Leica owners. Especially when they do things like selling off their entire inventory of R8 and 9 spare parts to some dealer who does not even reply to emails. My bill from Alan was just £350. 

I have not come across the same thing in the motor industry. My local specialist Porsche repairers (Precision Porsche), who I now use for my old 911 and is not part of the official dealer network, seem to get exactly the same parts service from Porsche UK as my local main dealer (Porsche Mid-Sussex), who I use for service on my modern Porsche, at which they are very good. In fact the specialist dealer is better for old cars, as they can also access parts from specialist part makers like ARP, Rennline, Design 911 etc, when Porsche Stuttgart have run out of parts. The main dealer has to wait until Porsche makes a new batch, as they are not permitted to fit non-OEM parts. I waited over a year for new gearbox parts for my RSR when my old 911 was at the main dealer, which I could have got off the shelf from Rennline in the USA. You can go into any VW or Ford dealer and buy parts to fit yourself. 

Wilson

Edited by wlaidlaw
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31 minutes ago, wlaidlaw said:

The only "official" film M camera repair centre is Wetzlar.

There is an "official" M camera repair centre here in Melbourne.  Camera Clinic.  Top class.

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Hector, 

Apologies I should have qualified my statement "in Europe". Mind you given the dreadful work I have had done by Leica when they were in MIlton Keynes and before that in Ealing, I am quite glad they are no longer official film camera repairers. They were unable do satisfactory repairs on my previous M7, Leicaflex SL2 and damaged my Digilux 2 so badly it had to be replaced. 

Wilson

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On 6/20/2014 at 8:19 PM, Philjh said:

Have you tried Newton Ellis and Co. at 29 Cheapside, Liverpool, L2 2DY.

Camera, lens and camcorder repairs - Newton Ellis & Co.

 

Ian, the technician for Leica repair, did a wonderful job on my 1942 111F (factory converted from a c). The camera had sticky shutter and wind-on also dull range/viewfinder. The mechanics are now smooth as silk and the optics crystal clear and accurate. There is an eight week delay because of the large number of Leica repairs in hand.

I changed the failed rubberite using the recommended kit on The Leica Society website.

Newton Ellis repaired a stuck film-counter on my M6TTL and did a CLA. They're not very quick but completed in the time promised. Excellent job and nice people.

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1 hour ago, oliton said:

wlaidlaw, I am afraid this is an incorrect statement. Peapke Fototeknik is currently officially repairing most Leicas (amongst other brands) and have bought Leica factory's full inventory of parts quite some time ago. You might want to check them out. 

I spoke to them. What they told me was that for REFLEX models they could service and repair Leicaflex, SL, SL2, and R3 to R7 inclusive, where they had acquired the spare parts inventory from Leica. They did not and could not service R8 and R9 models as they had no parts and the inventory of parts had been sold elsewhere (Photo-Arsenal). I did not discuss rangefinder models with them, as I have two very good service people already in the UK for these cameras. 

Wilson

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