mike_hinkleman1

@JohnSchriver. John what exactly is a 'swap' ? Would it be like taking a camera from the production line and engraving some previous sn on the top. There's something about an asterisk for duplicates, as I recall. Would there be a way ti swap a ii for a iiif ? In essence when does an upgrade become a swap? Also I was thinking a moment ago about the bottom plate with auf/Zu and Germany. I don't think I've ever seen a plate with those markings.

Update under the heading of "The Zen of Leica" by Rod Serling. The original camera at the start of this thread was supposedly from the sn a 1939 iii beginning with 333 and ending with 064 (I think) as I saw it just the one time in China a few days ago. The guy wasn't interested in selling it and took it with him to Gansu or Xingiang on a tour - it's national independence holiday week in China now. So I likely will never see that one again. But then. Leica Zen. A seller on the big auction site hamd a iiia for sale numbered 193 after the leica iii in China. Supposed to be the following batch of numbers according to the lists on the leica wiki. This camera is also a stepper iiic like the other one. Came with an unnumbered 5cm elmar and a rather odd black not brown case without a logo and yellowish stitching maybe after market ??. Lens in meters marked Germany; bottom plate with Auf/Zu and also marked Germany. What could I do but buy it? One other bidder set the price which was about 50% over what a generic iiia & lens would sell for. Maybe he was thinking what I was thinking. Or maybe he was in China too. I'll upload some images when I get back to the US next week and see the iiia/iiic after it arrives. -M

Thanks for the input everybody. I must confess that I was thinking that maybe maybe this was another finished proto iiic. But the missing ring under the high speed dial tells me it's a swap or misnumbered beast. Mike

I'll give it a shot tomorrow. I'm in Asia in the land v of zero bandwidth and extreme firewalling

Forgot to add. Not an export model.

Thanks for the insight John. I realize this is all kind of arcane and might only appeal to those who as my wife says spend too much time looking at old cameras ( where is LeicaTom ???). The top is like your avg stepper but I didn't know that the iiic top plate could be made to fit the earlier smaller crate. Was it shimmed or trimmed to fit it maybe. Marked DRP and Wetzlar like a normal run of the mill wartime iiic. But with a number that puts it 3000 odd numbers earlier than production iiic's. I think it's accidentally or intentionally mismarked. Thought perhaps somebody had seen a similar oddity. M

I recently saw a iiic with a sn theoretically belonging to a iii from 1939. My understanding because of dimensional differences, a straight upgrade is not possible. I have for instance owned a iiia 'converted' to a iiif but that camera retained iiia features like the 2 window finder arrangement but had the iiif speed dial etc. The iiic in question however looks to be a genuine wartime iiic but with the iii sn engraved. A friend has speculated that someone perhaps had a iii that was damaged and Leitz replaced it with a iiic and for whatever reason used the original camera's sn. ( sentimental ?) Does this make sense? Evidently there were some unusual things happening at Leitz at times during the war.