Assembling the heirloom M kit - advise needed

cosmonot

cosmonot

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A close friend of mine passed away last year and his wife is asking me to assemble an "heirloom" kit from his M gear. The intended recipient - the grandson - is only about a year old right now, so it could conceivably be another 15+ years before this gear is actually handed down. My directions are to put together one body + a set of lenses for the child. The remainder of the gear will be split amongst friends specified in the will.

I've decided to earmark the 35/3.5 + 50/2 + 90/2 as the lens set. Easy, because the only other lenses are visoflex stuff or slower 50mm.

The bodies I have to choose from are a user grade M2 (button rewind), a nearly mint M2 (lever rewind + self timer), or an M6 that's very nice but not perfect. All gear is in silver chrome and all function flawlessly right now (all have been CLA'd in the last 10 years or so).

At the moment I'm leaning towards setting aside the nicer of the M2 bodies. If this kit actually ends up being used, I think it would fit the lens selection the best. The M2 seems like the more robust choice. (please don't flame me for that!)

Which body would you pick? For the speculators: which would be the most desirable collector/user of the group in 20 years?
 
My opinion is that the visoflex is one of the silliest looking things to put on such a beautiful camera. Aside from that opinion, I think you should leave the most well preserved pieces, since preservation is the objective.
 
Another thought - a good book on leica cameras should accompany the camera, since he won't know what it is, or understand the differance between a quality camera and a whatever they are making in 15 years.
 
cosmonot said:
A close friend of mine passed away last year and his wife is asking me to assemble an "heirloom" kit from his M gear. The intended recipient - the grandson - is only about a year old right now, so it could conceivably be another 15+ years before this gear is actually handed down. My directions are to put together one body + a set of lenses for the child. The remainder of the gear will be split amongst friends specified in the will.

I've decided to earmark the 35/3.5 + 50/2 + 90/2 as the lens set. Easy, because the only other lenses are visoflex stuff or slower 50mm.

The bodies I have to choose from are a user grade M2 (button rewind), a nearly mint M2 (lever rewind + self timer), or an M6 that's very nice but not perfect. All gear is in silver chrome and all function flawlessly right now (all have been CLA'd in the last 10 years or so).

At the moment I'm leaning towards setting aside the nicer of the M2 bodies. If this kit actually ends up being used, I think it would fit the lens selection the best. The M2 seems like the more robust choice. (please don't flame me for that!)

Which body would you pick? For the speculators: which would be the most desirable collector/user of the group in 20 years?
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First, condolences and commiserations on the death of your friend.

Second, what a lovely idea.

Third, I'd make exactly the same choices as you. That way, the lad gets a really usable outfit (if he wants it) and the most valuable selection (if he wants to sell). Visos are quite useful and fun for Leica addicts, but you need to be committed to Leicas already and they're never going to be worth much.

My own grandfather was a keen amateur photographer. He was killed off Crete in HMS Gloucester in the Second World War, long before I was born. I'd love to have inherited one of his cameras when I started getting interested in photography over 20 years later.

Cheers,

roger
 
I would agree. Your choice of lenses plus the nice M2. Maybe also get a technician's advice on storage and any maintenance needed in the interim.
 
I'd go with the better M2 also. While I think the Visio would be a fun piece to display, my wife would think otherwise. To me, the M2 with a set of lenses would be just as beautiful. It truly is a classic.

You never know about 16 year olds. Some latch on to stuff, others want to 'bay it and get an iPhone. My family was not as well off, I got a slide projector my grandfather got when he retired from Kodak Park. Still have it though.

Sorry about the loss of your friend. I'm hoping to split my two RF kits between my sons. On gets the old Leica from my father and the new Nikon from me, the other I hope will get his grandfathers old Nikon and the new Leica from me. Time will tell.

B2 (;->
 
Hephaestus said:
I'd be inclined to choose the body that the grandfather actually used the most.

Ryan
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You hit the nail on the head there Ryan. Not the same as a camera but I have some tools from my grandad - I love the ones he actually used more than the much nicer/more efficent ones he bought and hardly used, even if they are what we would call 'beater' here.
 
Thanks for all the input!

I'm sure he spent the most time with the M2 bodies, but used the M6 more in recent years because of it's various advantages. All show wear though, and none were babied. The roughest (and oldest) of the M2s was actually vacuum sealed and stashed away after it's last CLA.

We still have not come across the viso housing itself yet, but that may be a nice piece to include in the kit. A true artifact of the era in which these cameras were designed. This is one reason I'm leaning towards the M2 as the heirloom body: the smoothness of the mechanics and it's feel in the hand set it apart from the M6, and it was the camera that began my friend's love of the M.

There will also be a couple cameras included in the kit that will hopefully be handed down earlier than the Leica, including some nice Retinas.
 
Pick the M6, if there is any chance he will use it. Otherwise, to use a Leica he will need either a hand-held meter or a Leicameter MR-4 to mount on one of the M2s, and I haven't heard that any meter was in the kit. Moreover, a 16 year old kid in 2023 will think an M2 and a Weston (or even a MR-4) are totally out of date, but he might be able to bridge the gap to an M6, with its built-in meter.

If it's just for display, anything will do, but would Grandpa want that?

Your lens choices are good and will bring out the best in a Leica.
--Lindsay
 
"a 16 year old kid in 2023 will think an M2 and a Weston (or even a MR-4) are totally out of date"
I have to disagree. I was 16 only last year and it was around this time I found about my grandfather's camera collection which had been kept to one camera at a time over the years.. he had an M3 then a Leicaflex (with thousands of dollars worth of lenses) and then finally a CL - the only one still in the family. If the M3 was still around I'd think of it as a glorious object - he was a photographer not a fondler and no doubt his use would've been visible on the body and lenses.
I would go with what Ryan said, go for the one where the 16 year old is going to see the wear and imagine where the camera has been and what it has seen while in the hands of his grandfather.
Besides, the M2 is still a wonderful camera to use!
 
I think this discussion might almost be a little *too* philosophical for this particular forum 😉

The sad fact is that I am the one sorting the gear out. The photo bug appears to have skipped a generation at the least, and my friend's wife deals only with digital now. His daughter has little interest in photography and she grew up surrounded by it.

I've just started assembling the bag, cleaning the glass as I go and packing carefully to help keep things separated. The M2 is in it now, with the 35/3.5 mounted and ready. A meter will be added, and any other bits we come across will be evaulated item by item.

It was of the utmost importance to my friend, and now to his wife that the "stuff" he enjoyed be distributed amongst friends that shared the same passions. The remainder of the Leica gear will go to photographers that are either M users, or want to be. Having all of the gear sit idle with the narrow hope that it might be cherished far in the future was something he never even considered.

Thanks again to everyone for their advice! I must say, fondling a pile of Leica goodies has never been so depressing 🙁
 
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This might be risky or bad advise, but FWIW I'll give my experience receiving a Leica when I was 16.

I started showing some interest in photograhy when I was in high school. My grandmother found out and gave me my grandfather's IIIa. I thought it was just some old camera until I started checking.

Now, for me here is the interesting part about that camera, some of which I have only figured out recently. After my grandfather's death in about 1952, my grandmother loaned the camera to her brother-in-law. He and his son used it for a number of years before returning it to my grandmother with a different lens - a 50mm Collapsible Summicron. I have to wonder if that camera helped with my cousin's interest in photography. He has been a professional photographer most of his life and still has his M2 kit.

I'm not a great believer in putting something away for a long period of time if someone else can use it in the meantime. I realize this can open a can of worms, but in my case it adds a little more meaning.

Now I can't wait to go through my grandfather's recently rediscovered glass slides that were taken many years ago with the IIIa. I kind of knew they existed, but my Dad kept them packed up for the last 30 years or so.
 
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I second the suggestion of including a nice Leica book to go along with the kit, along with maybe some prints of some of his grandfathers work. It'll help him to appreciate and understand the value of his inheritance. Maybe.
 
Sorry to hear about your friend's passing.

Along with the equipment I suggest going through your friend's portfolio of prints and preserving some along with the cameras for his grandson to see.

As for the equipment the nice m2 body is a good choice. But personally I think the user button rewind m2 is better for sentimental reasons or even the m6 if your friend had used it to take photos of his grandson.
 
I returned the kit last night, and explained the differences between the M2 and M6, went over the lenses and where not to store it (I found some gear under a sink in a back room while helping sort through things).

After all the deep thought, deliberation, etc. the M6 was chosen to stay in the bag. Why? Because his wife has an emotional connection to that particular camera: he bought it while they were on vacation in Europe, and it was the one _she_ remembers.

I did add a 135/4 to the bag, and will still be searching for the visoflex gear.

It was truly unfortunate that my friend was unable to seriously use his film gear in recent years. He was in pain for a long time and wasn't able to venture far from home for long periods, or go without some very serious pain killers even when sitting on his couch. There was a roll of Kodachrome in the M6, and a roll of Tri-x in one M2 that I'll be developing along with my next batch of film. He used his DSLR a lot more in recent years, just because it was so much more convenient.
 
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