Black minox IIIs

[yeti]

I just bought an almost mint black Minox IIIs from a friend and I

wonder if I paid too much (1000 Euros) for it. <br>

Any information available about the rarity/price that this model sells

for?

[jeffpolaski]

It's rare, it works and you paid a lot for it. Why worry about the price now? Enjoy it!

[MTC Photography]

Black IIIs is quite expensive.

[Troll]

My black IIIS was put through the washing machine by a roommate who thought he was doing me a favor by washing all my clothes when he was washing his. Then it was lost by the Post Office when I sent it to Minox for repairs. That was 1969, and I replaced it with a silver IIIS but haven't seen another black one since. It is one of the few cameras I have missed after it left my posession (a black "C" and "LX" have never satisfied the empty feeling). I think that I got $50 for the loss.

[poulbh]

I think you could have bought an original Riga for that amount. I don't know anything about prices of black IIIs though.

 

 

here are some completed items from that auction site. The A is the same as a III.

 

Minox A schwarz

EUR 1,299.00

 

 

TOP OF THE RANGE MINOX TLX with FLASH. BN. GBP 795.00

 

 

 

 

Minox LX Gold

EUR 1,100.00

 

 

 

Minox A schwarz EUR 999.00

 

 

Minox Riga " Latvia"! EUR 990.00

[edward_zimmermann]

As pointed out elsewhere--- but added here for completeness--- most Minox III black cameras currently on the market and nearly EVERY black Minox A (most of the black models where III and for the North American markets) in collections (or up for sale) are fakes. Some are poor fakes and some nearly impossible to detect as they were made after the 1980s from raw blanks--- many of these "disappeared" or got "collected" following the default of MINOX and their move. Riga models are, however, no safe bets either as many of the Riga models I've seen hit the online auction sites are "<cite>neo-fakes</cite>" (albeit made from "real" parts but assembled in the 1990s or later from old parts). Black MINOX stuff or Riga items continue to trade at a high price so there is enough cause for some criminal energy to get unleased.. This had led to not just a bunch of black cameras and some black (never before seen) accessories, some special Riga models but also even a bunch of absurd cameras like coloured MINOX ECs--- save the special item made last year for the 1st German Club--- which are, despite some nice sounding stories, ALWAYS fakes (and most painted by/for a certain geezer known within German MINOX collectors circles). Fraud seems to be as common to many of those trading in these cameras as dopping to racing cyclists...

[yeti]

All this information is really interesting, thank you very much indeed, but my good

friend is an old collector that

owns the camera for decades and he bought it from the initial buyer who was a collector

himself. It is not mint but a definite mint minus. Everything on it is

right, the

serial number too! (Since the camera is not for sale I will not try to prove that it is an

original black IIIs, if I am sure about its originality it is enough already :O)<br>

Now back to my initial question, as I said I paid 1000 Euros for it, a price that we both

agreed that it was fair. Then we realised that the Euro/USD rate is now very high (most of

the prices that we knew were in USD), so we

wanted to check with other people's opinions too. That's all. From the messages that I

received

so far it looks like it is a nice price, not low but also not expensive for an original.<br>

I welcome any information from more well known sales.<br>

Thanks again,<br>

Jordan

[subminiature]

A black AIII will get 1600EURO at auction. Even easy to spot fakes have reached this. Anything in the region of $1000/1000EURO is very reasonable with good history, i.e. prove that it was originally sold black.

 

Some of the fake black accessories where made decades ago and have already seen some years of use. I have a black ME2 that is almost certainly a post production and I find no records of a sale price for a black ME2, but some shop owners who have traded in Leica and Minox almost from the beginning have memory of some of these direct from the factory. The same applies to the black B prism and right angle mirror.

However the prove of the existance of one of these does not immediately follow that one offered now was not made black after it was taken/sold/supplied from the Minox factory. There are Minox users who have puchased new sheels and for Minox cameras and had them professionally anodised for their own use. I also know of some gold plated. Unfortunately these will one day be sold off and possibly the hostory the owner left be discarded. So airspray ECs sold as orignals (they are not) and purchased by a collector have begun to be sold off by relatives who only know that $400 was paid for it and assume it was genuine.

 

BTW getting an unaltered AII is equally hard. Most where factory modified and even after the most strick questioning the seller can't work out all the fine details the collector wants to know. I only know of 4 or perhaps 5 people who I could trust to make the inspection 100% certain and I don't think any of those would tell a geniune black A from a non-Minox converted one.

 

Gerald

[edward_zimmermann]

Gerald commented "<cite>However the prove of the existance of one of these does not immediately follow that one offered now was not made black after it was taken/sold/supplied from the Minox factory.</cite>"

<P>

And worse still, unless we have both an original reciept and trace specifying the existence of some of these black accessories we can't be terribly certain--- despite claims of shops that they recall selling such--- that they existed. I suspect even back in their day 3rd party black, gold and zebra cameras make their way into the stream. Throw in some "urban lore" and its hard to tell orginal from "tuned". How many of us, for instance, believed the stories of coloured MINOX ECs? Have many of us the stories of swastika engraved MINOX Riga cameras as medals of honour for Hitler's soldiers--- even our most honorable and well established "expert" Heckmann fell for that one! How many fake cameras have we seen get record prices--- due their "rarity"--- at some of the most respected auctions? As memorabilia dealer and merry frauder Konrad Kujau--- recall the Hitler diaries and the gloring support by England's most prolific establishment Nazi, David Irving--- pointed out: there is money to be made giving people what they want to find. The widespread use of the "Internet" has not improved matters but made things even easier to create histories.. Its the world of "democratic knowledge" sans scientific method as exemplified by the Wikipedia. Must be true if its be said somewhere.. like my favorite claim of a few years ago that Zapp was a jew or the claim by J.Edgar Hoover that he invented the "microdot"-- which was invented by a jew (Goldberg) but not, as claimed, Nazi technology (the disinformation in the Reader's Digest was intended to gain support from the American people to an alliance with German war criminals in the (hardly) "cold" war against the USSR).