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hammertone


roger_michel

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hey marc --

 

if the magazine had that effect on you, WHATEVER YOU DO, do

not see the camera in person. it is very fine indeed.

 

you won't have to keep up the vigil long. i hear it's a limited

edition -- limited strictly to correspond precisely with total

worldwide demand + 100 pieces.

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Maybe I'm out of my skull - but yes, I've put down my deposit!

Even more insane is how I'm treating my LHSA BP - I actually

USE it! Yes - brass is beautiful! I photograph for a charitable

foundation, and drag the BP around Ethiopia every year. In the

Vermont winter I put it in my freezer (so the snow won't stick) and

take it out into the worst weather imaginable! I'll do this also with

my Hammertone. I'll ding it! I'll bump it! I'll even drop it a few

times! (Jay is cringing, I just know it!) How will the hammertone

like this? How will it wear? Who knows! Who cares! All I know

is that I'm as addicted to using these cameras as I am to owning

them.

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My Calumet 4x5 monorail is gray hammertone, has 5x more gray hammertone surface than the MP, and cost me $200 including an Ektar lens. I also have an eyelet press in gray hammertone which belonged to my Dad, I think he paid about $1.25 for it back around 1948. So I've got my gray hammertone fix covered. But I do hope Leica will feel righfully ashamed that they used bathtub strip material for the production MP's when they could've used the LHSA/O-series material and made them that much more beautiful and reminiscent of the M2/M3 which was their only real reason for devolving the M6 into the MP to begin with.
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The last thing I remember seeing in Grey Hammertone was the guttering and downpipe on an old farm building.

 

Actually, come to think of it, did'nt old 1940-50's dentist drill stands and dentist's chairs come with metalwork/legs finished in grey hammertone?

 

And an old toolbox my father kept in the shed when I was a boy, I am sure that was finished the same.

 

Yes, what a visual and tactile treat that will be on a Leica.

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Actually, come to think of it, did'nt old 1940-50's dentist drill stands and dentist's chairs come with metalwork/legs finished in grey hammertone?

 

I've got a Wells belt-driven handpiece and a polishing lathe in the dental lab, which have gray hammertone covers over the motors, and they're both in current production. They don't say LHSA though but they probably take as many pictures as most of the LHSA MP's will ;>)

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Hammerloid paint has been used on many machinery and appliance products for decades. My childhood home had a gas fired furnace in green Hammerloid. Sears and Roebuck made Machinist and Mechanic toolboxes in gray, perhaps they still do. Given the mundane applications of this finish, I fail to find it enticing on such a love object as the Leica M! Sorry guys. Best regards, Bill
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I started building small electronics projects as a kid. The standard way to do this was (and is) to build them in blank aluminum boxes, or on a blank chassis, often finished in gray hammertone. So for me, hammertone signifies "cheap" or homemade. Another finish often seen on electronic gear was the wrinkle paint finish. Collins, Hewlett-Packard, etc. used that.

 

So gray hammertone on a Leica-- a cheap finish on a fine instrument--just doesn't look right. Neither would wrinkle paint, although it does have a good non-slip texture.

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