Who knew?

Yeah, and then there's that guy who repaints cameras without disclosing as such and then describes them as "minty"! I

guess that means they'd be good for chewing on after a spicy or garlicky meal.

I'm not so sure about this camera being a fake: first, all that white lettering: on the C4, that stuff is not engraved, it's printed on... you could paint the lens and dials black but you can't magically make the black painted numbers turn white. And what's the deal about the shutter release button being "jammed down"? Have you guys ever owned a C4? The shutter release button stays down until you wind the shutter for the next shot. The color of the aluminum top cover is not black, certainly not the color of any black spray paint that you'd be likely to buy to respray a $5 Argus body: it's dark purple, a common result of black anodizing. A similar dark purple color can be seen in the top cover of the black C4 in the ACG photo that he links from the listing.

 

As for the lens not meshing with the RF dial, this is not uncommon in worn C4's, it happens when screws get loose and things shift around a bit.

 

I don't know who the seller is, and I can't prove that this particular camera is genuine; but I would be a lot more careful in knowing what I was talking about before I started characterizing someone as "quite a liar", a "jerk" and a "fraud".

Richard,

 

You are quite correct. I must apologize to the seller, he is only going by what he has found written on the subject by others. So Mr Seller, without knowing more, I apologize for any remarks I have made. I certainly hope someone buys this Rare Collectors Item from you.

Well, if you're interested in the thing, you've got until Dec. 31st to mull it over -- barring someone else hopping on it before then!

 

Hey, maybe better strike while the iron's hot!

 

Wow....

The damage is done, pity.

What damage ?

"What damage?" Maybe the fact that the seller was slandered before all the facts were in.

I seem to have ruffeled some feathers, however I have not slandered anyone. I made no mention of any name other than Phillip Sterritt who seems to be the root source, that all references (even the sellers), go back to, on the "black" cameras. I believe I asked him to let us know where he got this information. Saying something does not make it fact. Does just seeing a picture of a black camera (again supplied by Phillip Sterritt), on the Argus Collector site make it fact? On Stephen Gandy's page he shows a black camera with only the comment "said to be" and "photo supplied by Phillip Sterritt". I don't think he is convinced either. It is my personal belief that no such military version ever existed, without having some sort of military designator assigned by the government. This doesn't mean that other cameras were not "used" during war times. If I take my friends Argus 21, that actually was in Korea, and paint it, blue it, parkerize it, anodize it, or anything else, and call it a military version, does that make it so? Nope. If I then offered it for sale as a military version collectors item is that fraud? Yep. If I only offered it as "said to be military" is that still fraud or does that get me off the hook?

 

The government had certain criteria for contracts, such as stocking a certain volume of cameras, and then a certain volume of spare parts. This "said to be" black camera of only a few, could not possibly have been anything military.

 

My serious question is why this camera has old style parts on a new style body.

 

If some one could show me some kind of documentary evidence of any type of government contract or designator for these "said to be" cameras I might change my mind.

Like Rick, I was wondering about the engraving of numbers, but I have not seen a closeup of the "big knurl" version of the C-4 to know for sure that they didn't have deeper numbers than the small knurl versions. Mine certainly would be difficult to fill with white paint, though I suspect it would not be entirely impossible to engrave the numbers deeply enough. I imagine that if I though I could parlay may dollar Argus into a $1200 collectible, I'd be willing to put in a good bit of effort. But we cannot be sure, even if it is a fake, whose fake it is. The current seller may have bought someone else's fake.

 

I still find the anomalous top cover bothersome. Does anyone know if there was a transitional version that had the square finder along with the big knurls?

 

As far as I can see, the body itself is the old style, not the new. The new style does not have that circular stamping on the back. Only the top cover appears to be new style.

 

And I'm still curious about the serial number, which the seller has confidently shown.

Matthew,

 

After seeing the reference the seller made, I agree he may be just selling what he believes to be a collectable as shown in the reference. And without knowing more, I apologized for anything I may have said. My references and comments were to the person that made the camera.

The serial number is a part of the back and bottom, that is removable and is from one of the older models. The top cover that you mention IS the body, and is of the newer style. The seller shows the serial number since it fall in the area that "is said to be" when they were made. However remember that serial number is just on the removable back and could be from any camera.

Allow me to quote the owner of a black C4:

 

"As you can see, I have no suspecion that this is not one of the original black C-4s. Anyone who knows Argus cameras would know this is too much of a project to make phony copies. If it was a Leica, that's a different matter. My Black C-4 is 0256285 and as I recall Phil's is about 150 or less lower than mine. The range would appear correct to me. Bob, Phil, and I visited the Argus Museum several years ago and had hands inspections of three at one time. We then noticed the Museum's has a max shutter speed of 200 and not 300 as the one on eBay and both mine and Phil's. It also lacked a serial number. The two I understand Joe Horvat has, as well as this one, are in a similar number range.

 

In Don Wallace's notes at the Museum is a hand written note about 125 being made. I don't recall us finding other references to production numbers or production itself. Nothing to substantiate production for the military rumor has been documented. One was displayed by Argus in the mid 1970s at a photography show of "rare" or prototypes. I assume it was the one now owned by the Museum.

 

Don's collection became the major source of Argus Collection when purchased by the owners of the Argus Factory building... Joe O'Neal (owner O'Neal Construction Co.) and William Martin ( Athletic Director University of Michigan). Numerous additions have been made to the collection since by others,

 

>From rumors and the number in collections, I'd guess there are now 8-9 known. This one makes the 3rd one to appear within the last year or so on eBay. The seller says there were 5-6 made; however, that's the number used on ACG for the number known until this spurt of them on ebay."

 

To summarize, the color is good, the serial number fits the known models and the "uncoupled" rangefinder is a common fault. The flash shoes are bronze colored and the edges of the knobs and rangefinder drive teeth show what on a Leica would be called normal "brassing".

So, he has a correct serial number, must have faked that too. I suppose he also faked his 3800+, 100% eBay feedback score. Yep, a skilled faker if ever there was one.

Agreed, that's one hell of a fake!

 

But seriously, I thought it was a fake. You can't blame people for being skeptical (in my case it was sour

grapes), all his other items were run of the mill stuff (the painted grenades were hyperbole on my part). It was

a buy it now sale anyways, and we couldn't have affected the end price of it. Well... except maybe by dissuading

potential buyers from purchasing it, but it was all corrected in the end by people who had more experience with

non-fake black finish Argus'.

 

I learned my lesson: I have given up trying to black out the chrome on my cameras with Sharpie markers...

Now that the camera has been sold for its $1,299 asking price, perhaps we can return to some level of civility and only accuse people of criminal activity when we have some knowledge or evidence to support our attacks.

According to the relay of information of an informed owner, (" I don't recall us finding other references to production

numbers or production itself. Nothing to substantiate production for the military rumor has been documented"), Argus

had no production records ! No evidence of it being military related ever found ! Wow, how interesting. So the story

changes. So it's just a black camera now. Calling it anything else is only misleading the buyers of these.

 

I wonder who the guy was that made the "original" black ones? How can any of them be called collectors items if

they are just standard production items that someone altered to a purple/black color. I would think that would de-

value the true classic C-4. Maybe they are paying for the guys artistic abilities. Like a fine painting in Purplish black.

The camera just happend to be his medium. Since the factory never produced such a camera, there is nothing to

fake, so any black C-4 stands on it's own as a creative work and cannot be called a fake ! There are however some

mixed parts, various serial numbers, some

with no serial numbers, black cameras out there, that for some reason people seem to want. For that kind of money,

it doesn't matter if it is a Leica or a Brownie, someone will paint some black, if people will buy them.

 

I'm sure the guy that just bought such a camera is very happy with his find. It always amazes me what people

choose to believe.

I once serviced a Leica M3 that had no serial number. I'm just gullible enough to believe it was real.

<p>Well, if anyone is still following this thread, I'm Phillip Sterritt and here's my two cents' worth.<br>

<br />I have seen most of the known examples of black C-4s and the most striking thing about them is their consistency in appearance. The top housing and bottom plate are that same deep violet. I'm told that's the result of a cold anodizing process. The lens barrel is very different -- quite black, not an enamel coating, something much more 'integral' to the metal. All the lettering is white, including wind arrows, the 'OPEN' logo on the botton by the back release, etc. and the rangefinder dial is white-on-black and created that way. All of it is of the same quality you see in the lettering on the regular chrome C-4s. The 'gold' coloring on the hot shoe noted by one member is actually more brassy. Numerous parts of the shutter mechanism have a distinct copper color, I don't know why.<br>

<br />The serial numbers (all but one example have them) fall into a narrowish range, as J.Ed said, roughly 160 or so. They also fall into exactly the range of numbers that you would expect them to, based on the features of the camera. There were about 320,000 C-4s made in total, and the evolution of their features has been well-documented by a survey that's been ongoing in the Argus Collectors Group for about ten years. The most notable features the black cameras share are:<br>

<br />-- the coarse knurling of focus ring and wind knobs<br />-- a raised black circle on the back<br />-- a rectangular viewfinder eyepiece<br />-- the absence of 'Colormatic' markings on shutter speed dial, aperture scale and rangefinder scale<br />-- the use of a 'M/F' flash sync switch instead of 'M/X'<br>

<br />Based on the serial numbers and features, these cameras were all made around 1952.<br>

<br />We have searched high and low, spoken with Argus employees from the period, etc etc and no information about them has ever surfaced. There's a persistent rumor that they have a military connection, but as noted, black models of civilian cameras produced for the military tend to have green leatherette and usually some kind of military model designation, contract information, etc appearing on them. None of these have that. It has been hypothesized that they may have been produced by Argus as a prototype run to support a bid for a military contract. Argus did make products for the military from WWII into the 1960s.<br>

<br />The recent ebay seller's comments indicated he'd had his for around 20 years, as I recall. The one in the Argus Museum in Ann Arbor has been known to the public since the mid-1990s and came from a private collection owned by a former Argus employee (gone to his reward). I got mine about ten years ago. Others have surfaced sporadically.<br>

<br />It's very likely we'll never know for sure where these came from, but I choose to believe they're factory originals, whatever the motivation was for producing them. If someone altered a bunch of C-4s to make them into this population, they went to one heck of a lot of trouble, did a masterful job and don't ever seem to have sought to profit from the deal.<br>

<br />Great fodder for threads like this, in any case.</p>