A Leica Provenance Story

[alan mcfall]

Advertisement (gone after registration)

The true history behind any leica camera can be interesting to some of us. A family hand-me-down, or a former owner acquisiton story is almost as compelling as  the susposed famous leicas. From an early prototype likely handled by Barnack, to the beyond believable IIIc with "Himmler" hand scratched on the back of the top plate, some leicas have "provenance".  I recently received some leica items with some interesting documentation, average not exciting, but telling a story in their own rignt.

After the war, a Frenchman named Guy Breton, who is still alive, and having a letter in his posssesion from Charles De Gaulle thanking him for his service; became part of the teams to restructure Germany. See below letterhead(lower right).

Welcome, dear visitor! As registered member you'd see an image here…

Simply register for free here – We are always happy to welcome new members!

 I

He lived in Berlin and in 1948 for Christmas, he purchased a model III 137232 and Summar 209279. In August 1950 he  traded in the III and purchased a IIIa 304616 with Mooly 515, and kept the Summar.  In early 1951 he added a Telyt,  135 Hektor, PLOOT, a TEWE finder and filters.  Below are the receipts from Photo Talbot in Berlin, all neatly typed.

In 1951 he requested information from Leitz Berlin, and a full packet of brochures arrived all dated late 1950. Interesting at the same time March 22, 1951 he received a leter from Leitz Berlin offices thanking him for his interest and purchases. The letter is signed by Ernst Leitz, i presume, the second.  This letter is shown in the first or top photo.  Here is a close up of the signature,

 

 Now just a photo of the PLOOT because of the Photo Talbot logo on it. He shopped at this firm plus Foto Wasa, and Foto Herforth, all in Berlin.

 

So many booklets and other literature were included in my "find", many with hand writter translations from German to French. One interesting booklet was this red book titled Leica Praxis, a 110 page combination of instructions, and places to record your equipment and exposure specifics. Dated 1951 and edited by the well known Fritz Vith. Here are a couple of photos;     

Red Praxis upper left, also Emmerman book, and an interesting camera catalog of all brands available in 1952 from the largest photo store in Germany at the time, Photo Porst in Nurnberg.  Center photo shows equipment he had, having added a Summaron, and an 85 mm Sonnar. Far right photo shows a diagram from this book, that I thought could only come from a German engineer.

Guy married a German woman and moved permanently to Canada in 1956 all leica import/export documents from France were in my packet.

Sorry for the long post, but it is nice to see part of the story of a common leica. Maybe someone can provide further details of the foreign text, and personal knowledge of the time and location.

[Advertisement]

The Leica Q3 is available for pre-order at B&H Photo Video and Adorama

[david strachan]

Good story Alan.  I like the history of photography, particularly Leica.

 

Lucky you to have these items.

 

...

[alan mcfall]

Some of the photos have poor resolution, I am still getting familiar with sizing and data limits.  If anyone is remotely interested in the documents, I can send high detail information.

[david strachan]

Alan, i get the story...wonderful.

 

But need better, more even light on the subjects...too much vignetting. Document copy isn't easy.

 

Hope i'm not offending...your story and the pictures are fine.

 

...

 

 

 

 

[ironringer]

Love the old paper with an interesting story behind the dealers, equipment and the photographer. An excellent acquisition. Where is the gentleman in Canada?

I wonder if any prewar camera stores still exist in Berlin, or other German cities?

[willeica]

Nice find Alan. I will send a link to this thread to Lars Netopil and the Leica Archives to see if they can throw any light on the Ernst Leitz signature. In my country when a letter was being signed in the company name in years gone bye we either used 'pp' (for 'per pro') with the actual signature of the person signing or sometimes the signature would be the company name with '&Co' added afterwards. This may well have been the actual signature of Ernst Leitz and Lars or the Archives should be able to confirm that. He may have attended to the matter himself as Mr Breton was part of the French Occupation administration at that time.

I have a friend who is a well renowned collector of all makes of camera and he tells me that provenance is the most import factor when it comes to collecting. I recently traced an engraved Leica II Model D from 1932 in my collection back to a Forester from Sweden and I have a photograph of him attending his older brother's wedding in 1938. I don't believe the photo was taken by the Leica as it looks more like it was taken with a large format camera for a formal wedding group. I have a few other items in my collection where there is some provenance, but nobody as interesting as Guy Breton. The one I would really like to trace is the ownership detail of an another engraved II Model D which was sold in Dublin in 1932; the engraving is similar to that shown on page 39 of Laney's  Leica Collector's Guide.

As for prewar German Dealers still in existence, somebody in Meister Camera in Hamburg told me that they can trace their origins back to the 1920s. Foto Rahn in Frankfurt has now been absorbed into the Leica empire. There may be others and somebody from the German Forum may be able to comment.

William

 

[schattenundlicht]

Advertisement (gone after registration)

Although not directly related to the Leica items, I would just like to point out that Walter Talbot in Berlin used to be much more than a mere camera dealer. 

My family used to live in Berlin for several generations, thus this Talbot camera was handed down to me (unfortunately irrevocably damaged by moisture in a basement).

Please excuse the highly compressed iPhone snapshot, I was on the run when I read @alan mcfall your post.

Kind regards

Mathias

Welcome, dear visitor! As registered member you'd see an image here…

Simply register for free here – We are always happy to welcome new members!

[schattenundlicht]

@alan mcfall: I have just sent you a forum PM with a proper e-mail address so that you could send me a higher resolution facsimile of documents that would need translation. I will gladly be of help, time permitting.

Kind regards 

Mathias

Edited November 4, 2018 by schattenundlicht

[willeica]

Neither Lars Netopil nor Jim Lager were able to identify the signature as specifically that of Ernst Leitz, but both were very impressed with this provenance story. I believe that the signature is possibly what we used to call a 'trade signature'. I have also put in a query to the Leica Archives and if anything comes back I will report it here.

That folder shown by Mathias reminds me that in the era of such cameras, versions with common parts were often made by two different companies with different lenses etc. The Houghton Butcher company in the UK originally used parts from Germany but they had to cease this practice during World War I. Such cameras continued to be made after the war in both folder and plate types. Some Ica cameras from Germany seem to be very similar to British Butcher Carbine models. The Walter Talbot camera shown by Mathias above is very similar to the British Butcher Cameo camera shown here http://photo-analogue.blogspot.com/2016/09/butchers-cameo.html . The author infers that the camera was made by Huttig or Ica. It was a fascinating period of 'parts engineering and sharing' between two countries who would soon find themselves on opposite sides in a conflict. I would not be surprised if the Walter Talbot camera, shown above, came from the same Huttig or Ica source.

William

Edited November 4, 2018 by willeica

[jc_braconi]

Alan 
I sent you a PM

[tranquilo67]

Thank you very much for sharing. I do like very much the cameras with History (or the History around the cameras).

[wlaidlaw]

Here is a photo of the 1937 receipt from Wallace Heaton for my IIIa and Summar, where I am only the second owner. It had had a CLA not long before I bought it but sadly, not a very good one, so it is off to Alan Starkie to get it done properly. I will also send its MOOLY to get its old lubrication removed and replaced with modern non-oxidising grease. Interesting what cheap thin paper Wallace Heaton, a very upmarket camera dealer, used for their receipts. 

Wilson

 

Welcome, dear visitor! As registered member you'd see an image here…

Simply register for free here – We are always happy to welcome new members!