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No. 114 Miami University Charles Messer Leica Collection

No. 105 Unknown - Auctioned off June 2022

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Leica Serie O No 119 - Leica Camera AG 

Replica Leica Serie O - Hoping to display this than the original No.114

Charles Messer Leica Collection - Miami University Art Museum - Oxford OH.  Photo second row left is Charles Messer. Photo third row left is William Messer, Charles Messer's son and a professional photographer. Next to William is David Lawrence who was the development officer at Miami University who helped raise the money to build the museum building. David later went on to be the head of development at Mayo Clinic before retiring.  Quick story about Bill Messer and his father. Charles asked Bill if he would stop by his home to photograph his Leica cameras.  He even offered him money to do this. Bill thought his dad had 3 Leica cameras and declined the money. Upon arriving at Charles' home in Cincinnati, Bill discovered his father's collection with over 1,200 Leica items.  As Bill told me "I was had!"

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This is a photo of the room Mr. Messer built in the new Miami University art Museum to display his collection.  Most of it was on display when it occupied this room. Later the room was converted to office space after Mr. Messer passed away, and the Collection was then put on display in the museum proper.  The pluses and minuses are, in my opinion, (1) While most of the item were on display, they were locked away and you had to have an appointment to see the Collection, thus it was not seen by many people. (2) When it was moved to the museum proper, less of the collection is on display but EVERYONE who visits the museum sees it.  The two men in the photo taken in the mid 1980's L to R Russ Adams of Boston who spent 50+ years photographing professional tennis all over the world. Known as the "Dean of the Tennis Photographers" he is the only photographer inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in Newport RI. Russ used Leica equipment in the latter years of his career.  The other gentleman is David Wendt, today a professional photographer.  Here David was a student at Miami University and his "job" was to manage the Messer Leica Collection and work the cameras to keep them in good working order.

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4 hours ago, Roland Zwiers said:

Pardon me for going off-topic much too soon!

Understand what you are saying, but have to accept it is interesting stuff that is good to have posted.

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Hello Ed,

I would be very happy to see you!
Without your encouragement I wouldn't have studied all this pre- and post-war Leica literature.
Because of your encouragement I dared to formulate hypotheses that were not in agreement with received wisdom/ common knowledge.
This whole posting owes a lot to your patient replies to earlier hypotheses, that I could adjust so as to make a synthesis between pre- and post-war sources.

Kind regards and take care,

Roland

 

 

 

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15 hours ago, tfey said:

This is a photo of the room Mr. Messer built in the new Miami University art Museum to display his collection.  Most of it was on display when it occupied this room. Later the room was converted to office space after Mr. Messer passed away, and the Collection was then put on display in the museum proper.  The pluses and minuses are, in my opinion, (1) While most of the item were on display, they were locked away and you had to have an appointment to see the Collection, thus it was not seen by many people. (2) When it was moved to the museum proper, less of the collection is on display but EVERYONE who visits the museum sees it.  The two men in the photo taken in the mid 1980's L to R Russ Adams of Boston who spent 50+ years photographing professional tennis all over the world. Known as the "Dean of the Tennis Photographers" he is the only photographer inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in Newport RI. Russ used Leica equipment in the latter years of his career.  The other gentleman is David Wendt, today a professional photographer.  Here David was a student at Miami University and his "job" was to manage the Messer Leica Collection and work the cameras to keep them in good working order.

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Great to see you posting here, Tom. We had good fun discussing these and other cameras, including the Messer collection, at the session with Bill Rosauer, yourself and myself in Dublin last October. I enjoyed sitting between the two of you as the discussion went back and forth in hearty fashion. Are you planning to attend the meeting in Wetzlar in October?


William  

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2 hours ago, Edward Schwartzreich said:

Not sure that my last attempt at a reply got through.  I do plan to be at the LSI meeting in Wetzlar.], and will be happy to join this erode group.

Ed

Great news, Ed. I look forward to seeing you in Wetzlar.

William

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19 hours ago, willeica said:

Great to see you posting here, Tom. We had good fun discussing these and other cameras, including the Messer collection, at the session with Bill Rosauer, yourself and myself in Dublin last October. I enjoyed sitting between the two of you as the discussion went back and forth in hearty fashion. Are you planning to attend the meeting in Wetzlar in October?


William  

Yes, not sure the earlier rply went thru.  I will be in Germany 10/10 to 10/22 first with Bill's group then the LSI annual meeting.  Looking foreard to seeing everyone agaon.

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Just to follow up on my thoughts about our No. 114, in the photo below you see the location of the camera in the current display.  It is circled in yellow.  In the next photo you see what Leica Camera AG does with their No. 119.  It is in a bank vault, and it took four years to arrange to have it in the archive room of the Leica Museum in Wetzlar in order to photograph it in 2021.  In its place they display a replica, presumably the one Leica made in 2000, but I do not know that for a fact.  I have given our Museum one of the replicas, now they just have to decide to use it, and I will be a happy camper! 

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2 hours ago, tfey said:

I will be in Germany 10/10 to 10/22 first with Bill's group then the LSI annual meeting.

Tom,

Thank you for sharing more information on No 114 and the associated information on Charles Messer.

I live in Scotland and in the mid 1990's I contacted George Carr about servicing an M3 I had at the time, he lived about 15 miles from where I lived.

George Carr was a founder member of the The Leica Historical Society, which was set up in Britain at an inaugural meeting in 1969.

The first newsletter issued by this society appeared in December 1972 (I only have a reprint), but in this first issue there is an article "A description of the 0 series Leica" by Malcolm Taylor (with assistance from George Carr). As part of this article 0 series No's 104 and 116 are shown along with an 0 series with the body shell removed (it does not state which number this relates to). In June 1996 The Leica Historical Society newsletter reported the passing of George Carr and on the cover of this issue it has a photograph of an Anastigmat lens dismantled, it also states this was part of a restoration of 0 series number 113 by George Carr in September 1969.

I am assuming these 0 series cameras (104,113 & 116) were owned at some point by founder members of The Leica Historical Society.

Alan

 

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8 minutes ago, beoon said:

113

In 1969 113 was owned by Rolf Fricke as mentioned in the article (Newsletter 1) to which you refer. The Fricke Collection is in a storeroom in the Museum in Leitz Park as mentioned earlier in this thread, but sans 113!

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Alan,

Now you mention Nr. 116 as well.
This camera is not linked to a name in the delivery book 'Kamera', but it is mentioned on page 115 of Oskar Barnack's work notes.
Interestingly, it is linked to the name 'Lehr' in the column at position [D] 'two cameras on loan' [2 Leihkameras]. 

At the lower [G] one can see: Lehr 116
I do not yet understand why 116 is underlined.

The same name 'Lehr' also appears as a crossed-out name [roughly between [D] and the higher [G].
[so below crossed-out Freund]
This implies that Lehr had borrowed and returned a loaner camera before.

The third occurence of the name 'Lehr' is in the group at position [H], together with 'Zack', 'Becker', and a name (presumably starting with  G) that I cannot read.
It seems that this group is on a waiting list for a regular test camera.

When Nr. 116 was used as a loaner camera, that might well explain why it has not been registered in the deliverybook 'kamera'.

Roland

 

 

 

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Alan,  I am new to this so I hope I am replying in the right place.  That is very interesting.  I believe No. 114 came from England, and I will run this by a friend who has knowledge of the Messer Collection and the origin of many of the pieces.  If I am not mistaken, I believe No.104 was owned by Leica Camera AG or its successor along with No. 119 which they presently own, but it was sold in the early 2000's.  I will confirm that, but I believe it to be true.  What amazes me about these 1923 cameras is while they are 100 years old, at least No. 105 can still take photographs!  At the exhibition in the Leica Store-LA in April 1922 when No. 105 was on display, also displayed were photos recently taken with the camera.This was before it went to auction in Jun 2022 and sold for over $14,000,000.  Truly amazing.

 

Tom

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As an aside to the Null Series, in 1909 Oscar Barnack also designed and patented the Montblanc Pix mechanical pencil. He was sent one of these pencils by August Leistenschneider in 1933. They worked together at Zeiss and later at Wetzlar where he was shown “his first model of the Leica in 1924” (Ulf Richter 2015). I have a Montblanc Pix from the 1930’s and use it to take notes.

 

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43 minutes ago, tfey said:

Alan,  I am new to this so I hope I am replying in the right place.  That is very interesting.  I believe No. 114 came from England.

Tom , you are doing fine with your replies, please continue with your valuable contributions.

I think I am correct in saying Jack Newton (also a founding member of the British society) owned a null series, probably other founding members as well. I will dig into my literature and find out which specific numbers they owned.

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10 minutes ago, beoon said:

As an aside to the Null Series, in 1909 Oscar Barnack also designed and patented the Montblanc Pix mechanical pencil. He was sent one of these pencils by August Leistenschneider in 1933. They worked together at Zeiss and later at Wetzlar where he was shown “his first model of the Leica in 1924” (Ulf Richter 2015). I have a Montblanc Pix from the 1930’s and use it to take notes.

 

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I have a couple and use one regularly.

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Peter, your posting did not display fully, i.e. you had to click on "expand" to see the photo of the pe, and read the rest of posting.  When wrote "I have a couple and use one regularly", silly me, I initially thought you were saying you have several of the Leica Serie "O" cameras and used one regularly.  That would have been spectacular, and I was hoping you had a really good security system. <g>

Tom

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