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Earliest serial number?


jaapv

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Just out of interest, I wonder at what serial number Leica stared counting.As far as I know I had the first M8 delivered in Holland in November 2006, one of the first dozen mentioned on RFF and here. It has # 3101100.

I guess Leica reserved the numbers# 3100001 to # 3101000 for the pre-production series and numbered the cameras intended for sale # 3101001 onwards.

Am I correct? What is the lowest number known on this forum?

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My camera from the first production batch (the banding ones) is 3102xxx

 

I did get to shoot with a rep's demo camera just exactly a year ago - number 3100300 - NOT a pre-production, because I was able to keep and show samples from it, just one given to sales reps first before Leica began filling customer orders.

 

Prior to that I got to shoot with a beta-firmware camera, but the betaware did not record serial number in the EXIF - techincally I was not supposed to keep or comment on those shots - but, you know... (I have never shown them or made specific comments on the image quality, and I guess it's moot now, anyway).

 

i think Leica just started with 3100000 for the first M8 off the line and went from there.

 

Remember that Leica's numbering scheme is to have a box of 1000 hot shoes with 1000 numbers on them, and take hotshoes out of the box randomly during assembly (per Mark Norton).

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Got one the very first day they was available. 31008XX. Funny the one bought in Schipol 2 weeks later has a lower S/N.

 

IIRC Pascal, you had everyone green with envy, LOL. There seems to be no rhyme or reason to the allocation of serial numbers. Also IIRC 32xxxxx were the 2nd batch after the problems were identified. But who knows exactly!.

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IIRC Pascal, you had everyone green with envy, LOL. There seems to be no rhyme or reason to the allocation of serial numbers. Also IIRC 32xxxxx were the 2nd batch after the problems were identified. But who knows exactly!.

 

No- my 3105328 is second batch, January 4th

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No buble, just interested.:);) Bought mine on November 9th.

 

Glad to see you knew I was only joking with that remark, strange though, there seems no sequence to serials in terms of delivery, I'm guessing the lower serials are all stateside given the shipping times. Purely conjecture on my part.

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My serial no. is 3100134. I got it from Tamarkin in NYC, Nov. 14. So they must have shipped a batch to the US for early deliveries.

 

Regards, Doug

 

PS: Sent it to Sohms in January for their hardware fix and haven't had any problems with it at all.

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Glad to see you knew I was only joking with that remark, strange though, there seems no sequence to serials in terms of delivery, I'm guessing the lower serials are all stateside given the shipping times. Purely conjecture on my part.

 

Mine is 3102787, a silver chrome ex-demonstrator, bought in North Wales on 14 April - is that 1st or 2nd batch?

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Mine is 3102787, a silver chrome ex-demonstrator, bought in North Wales on 14 April - is that 1st or 2nd batch?

 

That is hard to say. Some here think the initial run was 1500 units making the serial # go from 3100001 to 3101500. But if Leica started with 3100100 or 3100101 then the end of that run would of been 2500/2501. From what I have read on this forum I haven't seen a serial # below the 100 mark, IE 31000XX.

 

More to the point is your camera working correctly? If so I wouldn't worry about when it was made and or of what run it came out of.

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That is hard to say. Some here think the initial run was 1500 units making the serial # go from 3100001 to 3101500. But if Leica started with 3100100 or 3100101 then the end of that run would of been 2500/2501. From what I have read on this forum I haven't seen a serial # below the 100 mark, IE 31000XX.

 

More to the point is your camera working correctly? If so I wouldn't worry about when it was made and or of what run it came out of.

 

Touch wood... no major problems, although I'm not a high volume photographer (around 2,000 exposures so far, and another 2,000 or so with a DMR

in about 18 months). I'm not really worried whether it's 1st or 2nd batch, just interested in the chronology

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Touch wood... no major problems, although I'm not a high volume photographer (around 2,000 exposures so far, and another 2,000 or so with a DMR

in about 18 months). I'm not really worried whether it's 1st or 2nd batch, just interested in the chronology

That's just it there doesn't seem to be any chronology to the serial numbers.

My first unit, 31009xx, was replaced by NJ in June, I think, with one that had 3108xxx and just about the same time, one or 2 days before the new one came from NJ as a replacement, I bought a second M8 from B&H and that serial # is 3190xxx.

I would of figured that a NEW unit, and it was totally NEW, coming from NJ would of been from a NEW shipment from Germany and the one at B&H would of been in stock for X days/weeks/whatever. But if you go by serial numbers the second one I bought was made 80,000 units later. Go figure. If that was the case then Leica is selling a ton of M8's and making a ton of $$$$ and NO one is buying Chrome units and that is why it was sitting around at NJ.

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Dear Jaap, only for contribute, i just to say that my friend from Italy have this "beastie" serial number to his M8: 3.100.666

 

Ciao

giuseppe

 

I am from Italy too and as I wrote on my thread "bad banding on higlights" I bought my M8 one week ago, its number is 11020XX, it is affected by banding problem and it need to be fixed.

 

Ciao

Guido

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