someonenameddavid Posted August 15, 2011 Share #1 Posted August 15, 2011 Advertisement (gone after registration) I was reading a thread elsewhere about the NOOKY HESUM and one commentator stated that it was from the time when orders were made via telegraph: and it makes perfect sense because you Had to pay by the word so: qty 3 spring drive motors for leica IIIc would cost eight times as much to send as MOOLY3... Brilliant for the time. A light has dawned Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Advertisement Posted August 15, 2011 Posted August 15, 2011 Hi someonenameddavid, Take a look here leitz silly codes finally make sense. I'm sure you'll find what you were looking for!
luigi bertolotti Posted August 15, 2011 Share #2 Posted August 15, 2011 Leits understood the importance of PRODUCT CODING well before the EDP era... As a side note, in the first years they struggled to create "speaking" codes : the Leica I was... LEICA, the Elmar 5 cm was... ELMAR, and its 35 and 90 brothers were EKURZ (kurz=short) and ELANG (lang=long)... all the first filters were FIxxx (FIRED = red filter, and similar...)... the Tele lenses had codes like TELOO, TLCOO... but the success of Leica system resulted in an explosion of items which made impossible to continue this way , generating "mystery" codes like KOOHE, POLYO , ZOOAN... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Geschlecht Posted August 16, 2011 Share #3 Posted August 16, 2011 Hello Everybody, The early 1930's time period of the EKURZ & ELANG for Elmar Short 35mm & Elmar Long 90mm are not the end of Leitz's homophonous code words. Examples also might be 1938's PLOOT which is how the resonant mirror box sounds as the air rushes out of the first Reflex Attachment & don't forget 1948's FOKOS for the attachable rangefinder as well as the CEYOO flash of 1950. Perhaps the reason they were not as readily evident to Luigi is I have noticed many of them such as HEFAR for Hektor Far 135mm are homophonous in English not German or Italian. A possible reason for the significant English homophony is that whatever it was befoe WWII the USofA certainly became Leitz's major market after. W/ that posiotion now shifting to China perhaps in the future there will be a return to letter codes which will be homophonous in Mandarin. Best Regards, Michael Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
roydonian Posted August 16, 2011 Share #4 Posted August 16, 2011 The use of codewords also simplified paperwork within the Leitz organisation. Being able to write a short code (such as ‘SBOOI’ instead of “5cm brightline finder”) was a timesaver. One veteran of Leitz UK recalled his initial puzzlement at seeing these strange codewords being used in the company’s premises in Mortimer Street, London. His colleagues jokingly referred to codewords as ‘High German’, but assured him that he would soon become a fluent user. Best regards, Doug Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bateleur Posted August 16, 2011 Share #5 Posted August 16, 2011 Fascinating, I often wondered as to the origins. Like many my favorite is NOOKY. Is there a list somewhere of the codes? Regards Charles Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Geschlecht Posted August 16, 2011 Share #6 Posted August 16, 2011 Hello Charles, You might try looking in the back of Rogliatti's: Leica The First 60 Years. Best Regards, Michael Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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