"Chinatown" a movie with Jack Nicholson

[jc_braconi]

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On Ebay US there is the Leica used by Jack Nicholson in the movie "Chinatown" (as said by the seller)

here are some picts with the actor and the camera with a 135 and a vidom
I like the reflection on the front lens 

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[willeica]

Interesting. I just posted this link to a description of the camera on the Forum a few days ago.

 

http://camaracolecci...wn_english.html

 

Link to ebay item, not mine I might add.

 

https://www.ebay.com/itm/1936-CAMERA-USED-BY-NICHOLSON-IN-CHINATOWN-LEICA-VIDOM-HEKTOR-MOVIE-PROP/222719449589?hash=item33db1d19f5:g:soYAAOSw6WFaAeCL

 

I note that the seller says it is not the same camera etc, but, rather, the same combination. 

 

Caveat Emptor.

 

William

Edited November 15, 2017 by willeica

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[SilentShutter]

Don´t buy it.....may end like the movie the bad way !  

[jc_braconi]

Don´t buy it.....may end like the movie the bad way !

Absolutely !

[willeica]

I recall that some years ago, Westlicht were selling a camera, lens and viewfinder set said to have been possibly used by Eisenstadt to take the famous 'sailor kissing a nurse' photo in Times Square on VJ day. Westlicht had full provenance authentication for Eisenstadt, if not the picture, and a copy of a print of the photo came with the lot. It sold for over 200 times the amount that I paid for the exact same set up in my collection (the elements in my set were purchased at different times). It pays to establish provenance or lack of provenance, as the case may be.

 

William

[harryzet]

said to have been possibly used...or maybe not?

[willeica]

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said to have been possibly used...or maybe not?

 

 The word 'possibly' is my addition. There is a photo of Eisenstaedt with two LTM cameras around his neck. It is likely that he had more than one as a professional. There was a sworn statement by Eisenstaedt's sister in law to an attorney, included in the pack of items for auction, stating that this was the camera which took the famous photo. I have no view on the truth or otherwise of this statement. What is important is that the market accepted this situation and a substantial price was paid. Details are to be found in the Westlicht catalogue for Camera Auction No 23 in May 2013, item 74.

 

William

[pico]

I met Eisenstaedt once on an assignment. We were the only two photographers. (I did not notice his camera. )

The event was an entirely forgettable Soap Box Derby trial in the Midwest USA . He took it seriously. I was cynical. I was shocked into seeing the moment. My life view changed for the better. My photos ended up in a newspaper full page display. Nothing special.

 

Really, our moment changed my attitude, a new vector in my life. Nothing is insignificant.

Edited November 15, 2017 by pico

[luigi bertolotti]

.....

I note that the seller says it is not the same camera etc, but, rather, the same combination. 

 

Caveat Emptor.

 

William

Yes, the statement is rather clear... and the base price proposed not indecent... but globally the feeling about sounds a bit surreal... I think that many, in this forum, do own exactly the same devices... and making a reprint of the stage picture isn't so difficult... it would be someway ridicolus that several people start to sell on ebay combos in such a way...  btw many others can be made, with Leica or other gear (James Stewart with its Exacta and Kilfitt Tele in Rear Window would be nice... and the mytical Nikon F of Davis Hemmings in Blow Up... and.... Julia Roberts with M6/Summicron  in Closer... and...   )

 

(anyway...  .. I think that anytime an Aston Martin DB5 is for sale, some allusion to 007 is unavoidable...  so why not cameras too ? )

Edited November 15, 2017 by luigi bertolotti

[stray cat]

I have a 135mm Elmar that I bought from Leica Shop Vienna with provenance supplied by Peter Coeln. It was bought new by Elliott Erwitt in 1960 and used by him until about 1965 when he gave it, along with the rest of an M3 kit, to his assistant Okky Offerhaus - herself an accomplished photographer - who used it until the 1990s. It was in pretty ordinary condition when I bought it - I paid just a little more than you'd pay for a beat-up example of this lens - but I've had it cleaned and I use it fairly regularly. Does it matter that it was used by one of my favourite and most admired photographers? You bet. Would it feel anything like the same if I'd bought the same model lens, from the same year? No.

 

So provenance matters. Which is why provenance is such an intrinsic and valuable part of lot descriptions for auctions.

[willeica]

Yes, the statement is rather clear... and the base price proposed not indecent... but globally the feeling about sounds a bit surreal... I think that many, in this forum, do own exactly the same devices... and making a reprint of the stage picture isn't so difficult... it would be someway ridicolus that several people start to sell on ebay combos in such a way...  btw many others can be made, with Leica or other gear (James Stewart with its Exacta and Kilfitt Tele in Rear Window would be nice... and the mytical Nikon F of Davis Hemmings in Blow Up... and.... Julia Roberts with M6/Summicron  in Closer... and...   )

 

(anyway...  .. I think that anytime an Aston Martin DB5 is for sale, some allusion to 007 is unavoidable...  so why not cameras too ? )

 

 I agree, but if we all started doing this, the concept would be devalued. Can you imagine a Minox being advertised as the same type as was used by James Bond in Blah Blah film etc? 

 

 

I have a 135mm Elmar that I bought from Leica Shop Vienna with provenance supplied by Peter Coeln. It was bought new by Elliott Erwitt in 1960 and used by him until about 1965 when he gave it, along with the rest of an M3 kit, to his assistant Okky Offerhaus - herself an accomplished photographer - who used it until the 1990s. It was in pretty ordinary condition when I bought it - I paid just a little more than you'd pay for a beat-up example of this lens - but I've had it cleaned and I use it fairly regularly. Does it matter that it was used by one of my favourite and most admired photographers? You bet. Would it feel anything like the same if I'd bought the same model lens, from the same year? No.

 

So provenance matters. Which is why provenance is such an intrinsic and valuable part of lot descriptions for auctions.

 

I agree that provenance counts, but the concept of selling something as being the same type as was used by someone in a film devalues the concept. Most people on this forum have the same types of camera and lenses as were used by HCB , but we would not dream of advertising our cameras as such if we were selling them.

 

Speaking of Elliott Erwitt, I met him and took his photograph as he was waiting to see some of his cameras being sold at the 100 Year Westlicht Auction in Wetzlar in 2014. He was a charming man. We did not talk about cameras, but rather the advertising work which he did for my national airline, Aer Lingus. In Chicago this year, Jim Lager showed the LHSA AGM some photos that he had taken of Eisenstaedt with his cameras. He had been asked to get photos of Eisenstaedt with his cameras, but Eisenstaedt insisted on taking photos of Jim as he as being photographed himself. Now that is real provenance. I have, occasionally, been able to determine the identity of previous owners of the cameras in my collection. Alas no Erwitts or Eisenstaedts have emerged, but I can live in hope.

 

William

[jc_braconi]

I posted this topic for the fun
Personnaly I am tough in dealing an affair and I will never pay more than what it is because it was used by such or else one 
My pleasure is to paid less than the price asked if I can convince the dealer, anyway

for me only the conditions are important

[wlaidlaw]

After all instead you could buy a badly touched up picture supposed to have been painted by Leonardo da Vinci, that looks like the restoration was done by that lady who overpainted the Martinez Jesus in Zaragoza. It would have only set you back a mere $450,000,000. 

 

Wilson

 

 

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[luigi bertolotti]

  

 

My pleasure is to paid less than the price asked if I can convince the dealer...

 

THAT'S THE WAY !!! Well said JC   Makes me remember that all my Leitz plastic lens boxes (*) have been "bought"  in this way... anytime I discussed with a dealer for some item  (many years ago, before Internet era...  )  at the end of a long negotiation, it ended with me saying "ok,ok...I agree on this price.. you won... but as a last little satisfaction for me...You can surely concede me a Leitz  plastic lens box..."

 

(*) I mean the ones of this kind... have always liked them...

 

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Edited November 16, 2017 by luigi bertolotti

[Guest]

In pre-euro times I used them for depositing change from neighbouring countries after trips, now kept only for coins from overseas, the UK and Scandinavia. No need to open them to see what is inside.

The ones for R and Hasselblad lenses are too big for this purpose.

Edited November 16, 2017 by tri

[romualdo]

Early last year I bought some camera equipment for one of my sons plus a Leica tripod for myself. The seller was an Australian photographer & professional skateboarder but had been living in the states

& was back in aus for a visit/holiday. He proceeded to tell me that the tripod was from Stanley Kubrick's deceased estate, much to my amazement & a little circumspection. A few years earlier he had worked

for an estate company & had to deal with Kubrick's estate. He also had an M3 which he claimed to also have been Stanley's. Somehow he had managed to obtain these (not sure how above board it was).

He certainly wasn't trying to use this fact/fable as a selling point as the price was very reasonable - much cheaper than equivalent ones on ebay etc. He didn't seem to know a lot about Kubrick (his movies etc)

- I had to show him the famous self portrait with his barnack. The tripod certainly wasn't advertised as belonging to SK - he was a bit hush hush! about the whole thing but not over the top.

No provenance but an interesting story - why would he make something like this up? - it certainly wasn't for financial gain & he didn't seem like a fabulist.

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[mickjazz]

The idea of using a camera or lens that has been used by some famous person photographer or not is always intriguing.

 

I have only ever purchased a single Leica item new - 35mm summicron asph - so every other Leica was used by someone else before me maybe multiple people. Buyers of used stuff generally don't know who had what particularly in the current online auctions and professional estate buyers.

 

There was a time when I completely avoided any Leica camera or lens marked or engraved by a previous owner. Now Iook for them. I always ask about the history and usually it's unknown but there are some. Like the IIIC N-L that was a firefighters camera that he kept in the pocket of his fire suit. The F=35mm elmar from the University of Nebraska School of Mining.

[willeica]

The idea of using a camera or lens that has been used by some famous person photographer or not is always intriguing.

 

I have only ever purchased a single Leica item new - 35mm summicron asph - so every other Leica was used by someone else before me maybe multiple people. Buyers of used stuff generally don't know who had what particularly in the current online auctions and professional estate buyers.

 

There was a time when I completely avoided any Leica camera or lens marked or engraved by a previous owner. Now Iook for them. I always ask about the history and usually it's unknown but there are some. Like the IIIC N-L that was a firefighters camera that he kept in the pocket of his fire suit. The F=35mm elmar from the University of Nebraska School of Mining.

 

I have some like that which belonged to persons and places which are identifiable. On this list are an M7 used by a well known Irish fashion photographer, a Standard with SCNOO which was used by an identifiable photographer from Long Island USA, a very early I Model A that was used in a town in India, a II Model D which belonged to a forester in Sweden (I have seen a photo of him at the wedding of his brother, a lawyer, in the 1930s -probably taken professionally with large format) and, perhaps most interesting of all, a very early IIIa with details in German of photos taken by an unidentified photographer in Britain and Germany in 1935.  I have other documents which were handwritten by previous owners, but in most cases there is nothing to identify the photographer or where they lived.

 

A friend of mine, who is a major collector of all makes of camera, tells me that provenance is everything. The ultimate is, of course, a camera with photos which were taken by the actual camera, but they are rare, indeed.

 

William

Edited November 19, 2017 by willeica

[jc_braconi]

Many years ago I got a Leica I A with a lot of films taken with this camera also with a lot of accesories coming from Switzerland,
I had the opportunity to speak with the woman who was selling all this stuff which was belonging to her family, nothing famous but a rare moment

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Hallo,

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[wlaidlaw]

The first Leica my father owned (he used to borrow his father's Model II, which I still have), was a IIIa with a Summar. He was presented with this by the exiled Polish community in the small Scottish town, where he was the deputy provost (deputy mayor). In 1939 and 1940, he had assisted with their finding accommodation and work. Sadly I don't have this camera as it was stolen in the late 1960's. 

 

Wilson