joeswe Posted June 29, 2012 Share #1 Posted June 29, 2012 Advertisement (gone after registration) I just stumbled over a seller on Ebay who is offering half a dozen fake black Ms at the moment, some of them with "customized" top plates like a M4-2 pretending to be of the commemorative Everest series or a M4-2 with a "Ernst Leitz Canada Midland" top plate and serial number 005... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Advertisement Posted June 29, 2012 Posted June 29, 2012 Hi joeswe, Take a look here Leica M4-2 (sic) "EVEREST" and other strange beasts. I'm sure you'll find what you were looking for!
gvaliquette Posted June 30, 2012 Share #2 Posted June 30, 2012 What E-meter on a M4-2 ??? Guy Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
iphoenix Posted June 30, 2012 Share #3 Posted June 30, 2012 What E-meter on a M4-2 ??? Guy Presumably for the Scientologists amongst us . Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
doubice Posted June 30, 2012 Share #4 Posted June 30, 2012 What E-meter on a M4-2 ??? Guy Probably poor Google translation from German Entfernungsmesser (E-Messer) - rangefinder. BTW - I was in the Canadian photo trade when the Everest edition came out and am also quite familiar with Midland products. All the black M2's, M4's and M4-2's this chap is selling are indeed of very dubious provenance ..... Cheers, Jan Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
jaques Posted June 30, 2012 Share #5 Posted June 30, 2012 if this is a scam it is one of the most unusual I have seen... The seller has good feedback and a history of selling Leica items... Usually these scams are on hijacked accounts- and the accounts show no history of selling cameras... or they are zero to 4 feedback 'fly by night' accounts set up just for the scam. is it a certainty that these are all modified 'fake' cameras? I don't know enough about these models to make a judgement. If they are all fake it seems they are well done? Re-engraving the hotshoes- black chroming, etc?? could it be a chance that these are actually real? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
iphoenix Posted June 30, 2012 Share #6 Posted June 30, 2012 If you feel alarm signals within your waters, you don't buy. (Unless you recon the potential for profit exceeds the potential of risk). Personally, no way!! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
gyoung Posted June 30, 2012 Share #7 Posted June 30, 2012 Advertisement (gone after registration) Well I just looked at the M3, and it says 'nicht original', so in that one at least he is being honest. And the prices so far are not high, almost certainly less than having a black paint job done on a body, which is not considered a heinous crime round here surely? If I wanted another M3 I wouldn' mind paying a bit extra for a good black paint job, whereas genuine ones are expensive collectors items now Gerry Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
joeswe Posted June 30, 2012 Author Share #8 Posted June 30, 2012 Well I just looked at the M3, and it says 'nicht original', so in that one at least he is being honest. And the prices so far are not high, almost certainly less than having a black paint job done on a body, which is not considered a heinous crime round here surely?If I wanted another M3 I wouldn' mind paying a bit extra for a good black paint job, whereas genuine ones are expensive collectors items now Gerry I agree, if one just wanted a non original black M body with a customized top plate, I see no reason why one should not bid. The person who did the original job appears to have been more a customizer than a forger, else he would have used a MP-4 for the "Everest" job and given it a "matching" serial number etc. On the other hand the lack of proper Leica serial numbers make it smell a bit, well ... (the possibility comes to my mind that these were stolen cameras and the customized top plates were used to mask their origin) In that regard the attitude of the seller (given that he is a professional photo gear seller) is a bit inadequate. Yes, in some cases he states that the bodies are not original black paint, but in the case of the fake commemorative engraving he is not so outspoken. And I suspect that he knows more about the provenance of these items. You don't happen to find half a dozen of such custom black paint M bodies on a flea market or in a garage sale... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
jpattison Posted July 1, 2012 Share #9 Posted July 1, 2012 I asked him if he could explain the strange serial numbers of his Leicas, his reply was... "No, I will be a discount, the origin of the cameras can not understand!" John Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
luigi bertolotti Posted July 1, 2012 Share #10 Posted July 1, 2012 The "Everest" does exists, and the engraving is very similar to the one seen on the ebay item .... but was a series of 200 M4P (and R4, too), not M4-2, I'd say Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
amati35 Posted July 4, 2012 Share #11 Posted July 4, 2012 What a set of cameras! An M4-2 from 1982??? Wow!!! The Black M3 with the Summaron lens has an M2 body (see the release button of the lens, this is for sure an M2 body). Possibly that body has been swapped with the body of the M2 Nr. 065200, which certainly came from an M3 (again, the release button leave no doubts). The Grey M2 looks gorgeus, but even the seller declares it's a fake... Anyway, all the painted Leicas he's selling are fakes, even if sometimes he forgets to mention that, like in the case of the M2 Nr. 947000 (too many chrome details for a true one) An interesting collections of painted Leicas for sure! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
jaques Posted July 7, 2012 Share #12 Posted July 7, 2012 and they sold for not much money either... lot of work done for little premium. Good value if you are not concerned about genuine factory cameras... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
k_g_wolf ✝ Posted July 14, 2012 Share #13 Posted July 14, 2012 I bought from the seller in the past. He is very knowledgable as far as LEITZ/ LEICA is concerned and describes correctly, IMO. I don´t think, at any point he pretended to sell original black / grey LEITZ-cameras, or did he ? Best GEORG Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
joeswe Posted July 14, 2012 Author Share #14 Posted July 14, 2012 Well Georg, let me put it this way: If one lists a lot consisting of a dozen or so non-original Leitz cameras (in the sense that their top covers, identities, serial numbers have been tampered with), and in some cases these are indeed correctly identified as "non original", while in others cases (like the fake M4-2 "Everest") nothing is stated about their originality at all, then (at least for me) that somehow falsely implies that their is no problem with the originality of the latter ones. Maybe this wasn't done purposefully, but it is a definitely misleading and I would expect a trustworthy professional dealer to exhibit more care when describing potentially rare or collectable cameras. The second point is that he pretends to know nothing at all about the provenance of these cameras (see jpattisons post), which I just don't believe him. You wrote yourself that you know him as very knowledgeable about Leitz/Leica stuff. As I have written above, you don't find a dozen Leicas with "customized" top plates in a garage sale or on your local flea market. This kind of careless behaviour can also be seen in his use of English: While he is surely aware of the fact that most bidders for such items will come from abroad, he uses completely unintelligible translations like "the closure is no easy navigation". Come on, finding a correct translation for a simple phrase like "Verschluss ohne Funktion" can't be that difficult. Just my 2 Euro-cents. John Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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