exabetal

In addition to what's said above, If this were an early 30s lens, it should have had an 11 o'clock position locking lever on

the focus ring. This one is 7 o'clock. Moreover, the lever is the newer style, old ones had a push button to unlock the

focusing lever. Another giveaway that it's a newer lens is that it's indicated as a 5 cm lens. Old Elmars had 50 mm.

Advise: screw back the shutter button guard ring over the shutter button to avoid loosing it. They get lost easily and

they're hard to replace.

Yes, a real Leica II with a nickel 7 o'clock Elmar. The originally black vulcanite is a bit bleached (browned)

and with an 11 o'clock Elmar the value could've been a bit higher, but the laquer still looks pretty good. It

should bring at least US$400.

Robert, I wish you a lot of strength dealing with your health problems.

I suggest finding someone close to you who you can trust and let him deal with your collection. Don't bring

your gear into Europe, before you know for sure that customs won't charge you import taxes that could be

as high as one third of the value.

Keep all, they won't bring much money when you sell them and you will feel bad the moment they're gone.

But if you do, keep the EF!!

Not sure. I think 750 is a fair price for all this, even considering it needs CLAs. It depends on the front

elements being scratche. If not too severe, haze can be relatively easily cleaned from Summitars. It's

mostly the surfaces in front and behind the diaphragm. The front cell screws off easily and gives access

to these surfaces. I could do it myself. A clean Summitar is worth about $250. IIIfs easily bring $350 and

when you have Youxin looked at them, you could get $400. The Summarit hood is much sought after:

$150. The finder $50. Don't know about the Steinheil.

Fake of course, but with real Leica works. The serial number makes it a IIIb. This fits with the single eye

piece, the focus lever and the speed dial. It misses the slow speeds and the strap lugs, but that's easy to

hide under the "new" covering. The gold plating makes me think of a Polish refurbisher offering "touched-

up" classic cameras on eBay some time ago.

@Wayne; The Pana 14-140 is a pretty good lens, perhaps not EF-L quality but not bad at all, and

definitely not if you consider it's a 10x zoom. The Pana 7-14 IS top notch!

You could use "mintish". It's the most used description on eBay to indicate the seller thinks it's a pretty

nice camera. That's often a bit optimistic ;-)

The F-1n and T90 are missing here, but this is part of my series of black FDs.

<a href=" title="Canon FD SLRs by Huub L, on Flickr">

<img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3092/2551053560_89f705255c_z.jpg?zz=1" width="640"

height="427" alt="Canon FD SLRs" /></a>

Thanks Robert,

My IIIc looks very nice indeed, but on the back side there's a little scratch which reveales the

underlying brass. It looks as if at the edges of the scratch the chrome could be peeled away. Mine is from

1949 and I understood that so shortly after the war, chrome was still in such short supply that Leica had

problems getting their bodies to pre-war standard. In any case, the chrome on my 1937 IIIa is obviously in

much better condition.<div></div>

Thanks for the photos and you expert opinion on which ones you consider best. You wrote of the IIIc: "...

and many are in durable 'shark skin' covering". Does this imply that the sharkskin vulcanite is more

durable than the regular imprinted vulcanite? I thought both coverings were the same vulcanized rubber

and only the texture was different.

BTW, I have one of those post war sharkskin IIIcs and it's a fine camera. The only problem is the chrome

top layer, which is definitely subpar Leica standard.<div></div>