About fake Leica

[shaozhuohong]

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Hi there,

 

I found that there are some fake Leica II or Leica III camers or even screw lense made by Russia, which might cause confusion for Leica users.

 

My question is: Are there any fake M Lense or camers?

 

How to identify a fake Leica

 

Thank you!

[chrism]

My understanding is that at the end of WW2, camera blueprints and factory machinery were transported from Germany to Russia, allowing Feds and Zorkis to be made that were roughly equivalent to Leica and Contax cameras. It wasn't much more work to add the engraving to simulate a real Leica. Given that the Leica M was first made in the mid-1950's, there was no equivalent camera made in Russia, and thus nothing from which to make a fake.

 

Chris

[Robert J]

Hi there,

 

I found that there are some fake Leica II or Leica III camers or even screw lense made by Russia, which might cause confusion for Leica users.

 

My question is: Are there any fake M Lense or camers?

 

How to identify a fake Leica

 

Thank you!

The closest thing to a fake M series camera was a Chinese copy of the M4 called the Red Flag.It had all the features of the M4 buy the styling was different enough that they could not be mistaken for each other.Today it is a rare collectable that is worth 3 or 4 times what a genuine M4 costs.

(cccp.alien-planet.net)has a photo of the Red Flag camera.

[Robert J]

My understanding is that at the end of WW2, camera blueprints and factory machinery were transported from Germany to Russia, allowing Feds and Zorkis to be made that were roughly equivalent to Leica and Contax cameras. It wasn't much more work to add the engraving to simulate a real Leica. Given that the Leica M was first made in the mid-1950's, there was no equivalent camera made in Russia, and thus nothing from which to make a fake.

 

Chris

The Russians were making leica copies well before WWii started.The Kiev line of Contax II and III copies was made possible by the tooling that Zeiss was forced to make for the Soviet Union as part of their War reparations.The Original tooling was destroyed when the Contax factory was Detroyed in the bombing of Dresden.

[lars_bergquist]

The Russians were making leica copies well before WWii started.

Correct.

The Kiev line of Contax II and III copies was made possible by the tooling that Zeiss was forced to make for the Soviet Union as part of their War reparations.The Original tooling was destroyed when the Contax factory was Detroyed in the bombing of Dresden.

A small number of Contax cameras were made in Dresden at the beginning of the Soviet occupation. Then the original machinery and tooling was shipped to Kiev as part of the general official looting that was going on during the first two or three years. Some technicians did also accompany the gear. So technically, the Kiev cameras were genuine Contaxes, not "copies".

 

Dresden suffered grievously during the nights of incendiary bombing at the very end of the war, with someting like a hundred thousand dead in the firestorms. (There were no military targets there -- this was a war crime, terrorism pure and simple). But the industries were not completely flattened. Dresden had a camera industry right up to the Fall in 1990 and even later, with names like Contax S (the first 35mm SLR with a pentaprism finder), Praktika and Exakta (the prime SLR brand before the Nikon F).

 

The old man from WWII

[250swb]

 

Dresden suffered grievously during the nights of incendiary bombing at the very end of the war, with someting like a hundred thousand dead in the firestorms. (There were no military targets there -- this was a war crime, terrorism pure and simple).

 

Is this the place for a biased political point?

 

Steve

[Nicoleica]

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Is this the place for a biased political point?

 

Steve

 

Only if we are allowed to mention the German troop trains that went to Norway through neuitral Sweden.

[250swb]

Yes, I'd forgotten about that red carpet.

 

Steve

[christer]

Correct.

 

, with someting like a hundred thousand dead in the firestorms.

 

The old man from WWII

 

Herr Göbbels would have been very pleased if he had read that. The fact is that about 25,000 people died. We will never know the correct number, but that is the figure that has recently been established by an official Dresden commission.

 

Göbbels needed a high figure for his propaganda and it is said that when he saw the then offical figure, he said: "Add another zero to that figure to make it 250,000."

 

Of course Mr Stalin and Co had no interest in reducing the Nazi propaganda figure, their interest was to picture the Western powers in the worst possible light.

[andybarton]

This really isn't the place, but I knew someone who was a bomber pilot over Dresden. He couldn't and wouldnt talk about what he was ordered to do.

 

It was Britain's answer to Hiroshima, but took days to achieve the same effect.

[UliWer]

Herr Göbbels would have been very pleased if he had read that. .....

 

No.

 

I shall not comment the bombarding of Dresden; but I know that this remark is completely inappropriate towards Lars Bergquist.

 

Back to the original question: The Leitz works at Wetzlar were neither bombed nor at any time under Soviet, but under US-American occupation after the war. So there was no chance for transporting Leitz machinery to Russia.

 

There was no need to do so as well. The copies under the names of F.E.D. and Zorky and the fakes of Leica cameras and lenses didn't need to import the machinery or the blueprints. As the Leica II and the 50mm-Elmar which were the sources of those copies and fakes were quite simple concepts. You needed one piece to make a copy or fake.

 

The M with it's rangefinder was much more complicated. To copy it would have been expensive and didn't pay. So the F.ED.s from later days followed their own way, like the early Canons and Nikons and some other producers did. As the rangefinder M quickly came to a dead end on the international market with SLR-cameras having the more advanced technology it was not interesting any more to copy or fake a Leica. So you won't find neither faked M-bodies nor M-lenses.

[holmes]

Correct.

 

A small number of Contax cameras were made in Dresden at the beginning of the Soviet occupation. Then the original machinery and tooling was shipped to Kiev as part of the general official looting that was going on during the first two or three years. Some technicians did also accompany the gear. So technically, the Kiev cameras were genuine Contaxes, not "copies".

 

Dresden suffered grievously during the nights of incendiary bombing at the very end of the war, with someting like a hundred thousand dead in the firestorms. (There were no military targets there -- this was a war crime, terrorism pure and simple). But the industries were not completely flattened. Dresden had a camera industry right up to the Fall in 1990 and even later, with names like Contax S (the first 35mm SLR with a pentaprism finder), Praktika and Exakta (the prime SLR brand before the Nikon F).

 

The old man from WWII

 

Churchill personally order the firebombing of Dresden the night before hostilities ended. There was no military target in Dresden. The war had only hours to run. Churchill absolutely hated the Germans and was repaying them for the senseless bombing of Coventry. Churchill was aware that Coventry was a target from German codes cracked by Enigma. So he was unable to warn the city for fear of giving away the Enigma and then a new set of codes. The damage and death toll in Coventry was nothing compared to Dresden. Churchill at his most vindictive.

[250swb]

Churchill personally order the firebombing of Dresden the night before hostilities ended. There was no military target in Dresden. The war had only hours to run. Churchill absolutely hated the Germans and was repaying them for the senseless bombing of Coventry.

 

More biased half arsed propoganda. The bombing of Dresden took place in February, Hilter died at the end of April, and Germany finally surrendered in May. If you can't get simple facts right what hope is there? As for Churchill's hate I think you may find not many other people across the world had a soft spot in their hearts for Germany at the time.

 

Steve

[christer]

....... Churchill was aware that Coventry was a target from German codes cracked by Enigma. .......

 

Please state a source for that statement.

 

Enigma did not crack the German codes, Enigma was a machine used by the Germans to code messages.

 

Coventry bombing took place July-August 1940. If the German codes were "cracked" by then is certainly open to interpretation.

[andybarton]

The last raid on Coventry was on 1942, with the worst raid being in November 1940.

 

It was the capture of the Enigma coding machine that allowed Bletchley Park to de-code German communications. Without one, it would have been impossible. I believe it was Churchill who estimated that the war may have lasted an additional 12 months if the British hadn't captured the Enigma.

 

The first Enigma machine and code book were captured in May 1941

[earleygallery]

Back OT, if you find an M Lense then it is definately a fake.

[farnz]

Back OT, if you find an M Lense then it is definately a fake.

... or a "Lieca" lens then it's a lie.

 

Pete.

[luigi bertolotti]

AFAIK, NO fakes M Leica exist and NO fakes M lenses... I mean, of course, fakes and not copies like the above quoted Red Flag, which had also a "Chinese Summicron 50", with its proper chinese engravings.

 

Time ago a pair of Russian lenses in M-mount were reported... sort of prototypes someway similar to CL lenses (40 and 90 mm), but, again, cannot be defined as fakes.

[doubice]

.....AFAIK, NO fakes M Leica exist and NO fakes M lenses... I mean, of course, fakes and not copies like the above quoted Red Flag, which had also a "Chinese Summicron 50", with its proper chinese engravings.....

 

Actually Luigi, it was a "Chinese Summilux 1.4/50mm", not a "Summicron". They also made a "Summicron 2/90" - a close copy of the original Leitz version. The whole Red Flag project was apparently ordered by Mao Tse Tung's wife and was shelved when she fell from grace, along with the whole 'Gang of Four"....

 

Best,

 

Jan

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Hallo,

Look here: Interesting Leica gear