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Anyone found a Leica at a charity shop?


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The Leica IIIf on the right was in a Brown Paper "GRAB BAG" at a local Photo shop for $50.

 

2641110604_a1526288d3_o.jpg

 

The store Manager had the last laugh on the employees as they could have bought it, did not know what was in it, laughed at me for buying it, but would not let me leave until opening the Bag and showing them what was in it.

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I guy I know picked up a mint Nocti 1.2 in the box for 200$ at a fleamarket just a year ago. He made a profit...

 

Ive picked up a couple of nice things myself at a good price, but not from junk shops. 900$ Nocti and 800$ black Chrome M4 with 50 Summilux comes to mind.

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Many years ago I found a 50mm accessory viewfinder in it's little leather case at a flea market in a box of junk. The guy didn't really want to sell everything separately but since I only wanted that he sold it to me for $5. It was in really mint condition.

 

I kept it for many years and one day I needed to get my car back from the tow truck company so in these pre-internet days I placed an ad in the paper with a price determined from reading Shutterbug and sold it the next day for less than I was asking but still enough to get my truck out of impound.

 

Chad

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  • 10 months later...

I won an ugly Fed3b on ebay which just happened to have with it a Leitz SHOOC 13.5mm viewfinder. The seller didn't know what it was so I took advantage. I paid £20 for the lot! The SHOOC is almost mint and included a non-leitz leather case. Not big bucks but I was happy as it matches my Hektor 13.5/4.5 LTM.

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Once, I found a nice Leica but someone had engraved their name on it 'Luftwaffe' and they wouldn't budge from the asking price of £15 so I walked away.

 

What kind of Leica wouldn't be worth $30 even with engravings?

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  • 1 year later...

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Not a Leica, but I did pick up a Rollei 35 for £5 - sold it for £90. There was another guy who was hanging around the window looking at it, disappeared then came back to purchase it, but by that time I'd taken my chance and was standing at the counter with my £5 note :rolleyes:

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I bought a French "Leica", the Foca Three Star, at a junk shop in Marseille for €35 with a 50mm Oplar f2.8 (nicely pre-fogged for me). I think I was done! This is a camera where the designers looked at the Leica and Contax and decided to make a camera incorporating the very worst features from each.

 

Wilson

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I bought a French "Leica", the Foca Three Star, at a junk shop in Marseille for €35 with a 50mm Oplar f2.8 (nicely pre-fogged for me). I think I was done! This is a camera where the designers looked at the Leica and Contax and decided to make a camera incorporating the very worst features from each.

 

Wilson

It's indeed a someway odd camera.. but, at least, not a trivial copy of one of the two queens of RF... :o; btw, I have a copy of the book-reportage of the 1st ascent to Annapurna (first 8000 climbed - 1950 - French expedition Herzog-Lachenal-Terray et al.) and it states that the pictures have been taken with a FOCA... so it wasn't surely a delicate camera....

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Luigi,

 

The FOCA may have been tough originally but not now. The body is an aluminium diecasting and I suspect due to using a dubious aluminium alloy, maybe with zinc in it, has now suffered age crystallisation. You have to be very careful removing and replacing the bottom cover or you knock off another bit of the bottom of the light seal on the body. It is now about as strong as cake icing. Not a collectors camera!

 

Wilson

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  • 2 weeks later...

In the early 1980s I worked in a camera store in suburban Philadelphia... Good times = no money... But it was part of a chain of 12 or so storeS, one of which was in the 'burb of Media, which is south of Philly. One fine day a gentleman walked into the store with two old cameras which he wanted to sell. The manager could not identify them and as far as he was concerned they had no resale value and so he politely declined. One of the assistants then asked: are either of them 35mm? Because he wanted a carry around camera. Why yes they are said the seller. Oh then, if its ok with the manager I will buy them both for fifty dollars. Ok done deal.

One of them was a clunky noname, and the other a dial set model B.

Aaargh.

Some time after that I bought a used 105 f/2.5 Nikkor (which I still have) and spent my mad money. The day after that someone offered me an Ermanox with the Ernostar 105 f/1.8 for $75 and I was broke...

Recently got a mint- Contax IIa color dial with f/1.5 Sonnar coated last version for $75.

Favorite was my M3 DS with immaculate Summicron collapsible but I paid $450... If only the previous owner hadn't mounted the Leicameter once, it would have been perfect.

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Guest Randle P. McMurphy

Unlucky at that - but sometimes lucky on Ebay I purchase a 135mm

thinking it was one of these old Elmars build in 60-65´s but the owner

forget to write that it was a Tele-Elmar 4,0/135 mm and there was

no picture so I could buy it for 100€ - and I still love that thing...........

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I read on another (not photography forum) a post from someone who said when the switched to digital they threw their entire darkroom kit in a skip, including a Leitz enlarger !!

 

James,

 

In 1971, when my father was very ill, my parents decided to move from their large, old, cold, three-story family house in the north of Scotland to a warm, easy to manage, single story house. My mother threw away all the darkroom equipment, including 2 Zeiss enlargers and gave away my father's Contarex and Super Ikonta IV to a friend's husband - grrrrrrr! My father managed to hide his IIF in his bedside drawer. I am now looking at it on a shelf beside me as I write. I already had his Contax IIA, so that is also with me.

 

Wilson

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No, I never found a Leica in a charity shop but I did find this mint condition Leica at a garage sale last week for $20! Please see photo.

 

 

You lucky person a IIIF with a collapsible Summitar. Looks barely used. My guess is that the slow speeds will be very slow and it will need a CLA to clean the dry old grease out and relube with modern non-drying silicone lube but at $20 you can afford to sent it to DAG or Sherry Krauter.

 

Wilson

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You lucky person a IIIF with a collapsible Summitar. Looks barely used. My guess is that the slow speeds will be very slow and it will need a CLA to clean the dry old grease out and relube with modern non-drying silicone lube but at $20 you can afford to sent it to DAG or Sherry Krauter.

 

Wilson

 

Thank you Wilson. The slow speeds on the camera work perfectly and will need no cleaning as far as I can tell. The diaphragm leaves are also clean with no grease.

 

I Know very little about the wonderful Leica cameras, although I also own a mint M3, No garage sale find, I paid a fair price, and a couple of digital Leicas.

 

How does my Summitar lens compare with the other Leica lenses?

 

What would be the best film to use with this camera/lens combination?

 

Thank you and Regards, Gkenny.

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I read on another (not photography forum) a post from someone who said when the switched to digital they threw their entire darkroom kit in a skip, including a Leitz enlarger !!

 

A friend of a friend was recently walking past a house where the owner had just died and the son was chucking out all his dad's camera equipment into a skip. The FF did not know much about cameras, but decided that the gear looked as though it was worth salvaging. Amongst the haul was an immaculate IIIC with 50 Summitar and 35 Summaron lenses, plus some Russian LTM ones.

 

I have not seen the Leica, but the Kodak Retina Reflex IV that is now in my friend's possession looked good cosmetically, although the slow speeds seemed to be off. There was also some medium format equipment, but the FF was not able to carry everything that was there. Had the son been more knowledgeable about what he was throwing out, he could have made himself a tidy sum with very little effort just by selling into the dealer channel.

 

Regards

 

Mike

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Thank you Wilson. The slow speeds on the camera work perfectly and will need no cleaning as far as I can tell. The diaphragm leaves are also clean with no grease.

 

I Know very little about the wonderful Leica cameras, although I also own a mint M3, No garage sale find, I paid a fair price, and a couple of digital Leicas.

 

How does my Summitar lens compare with the other Leica lenses?

 

What would be the best film to use with this camera/lens combination?

 

Thank you and Regards, Gkenny.

 

My favourite film is Rollei/Agfa 100 ISO B&W (I think currently called Rollei Retro). It is a conventional silver halide film and I think suits older lenses well. It is getting difficult to find and is being replaced by Rollei RPX100. I use the older film in my IIF/Summitar and Contax IIA/Opton Sonnar. Sadly I have not been able to get any recently in 120 to use in my Rolleiflex and am using Fuji Acros 100.

 

The Summitar is not a bad lens as long as it is a coated one i.e. post about 1948. I think the earlier round diaphragm has nicer bokeh than the later hex diaphragm one like mine. It was a big advance on the pretty average earlier Summar. It is not as good as the collapsible Summicron or the very rare and eye wateringly expensive rigid LTM Summicron, particularly wide open.

 

I did some back to back tests on my M8 of the Summitar against the my f1,5 Zeiss Sonnar (using an Amadeo Muscelli adapter), which is about the same age (1953/54). The Sonnar was somewhat sharper at f1.5 than the Summitar was at f2. Of course the Sonnar was a lot more expensive than the Summitar, so not surprising. In 1953 a IIIF with Summitar was around $700. A Contax IIA with Sonnar was $1250 (enough to buy a mid range Chevrolet at the time). Not surprising that there are a lot more II and IIIF's around than Contaxes.

 

Wilson

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