1946 Elmar 5cm with engraving "Property of U.S. Army"

[joeswe]

Hello,

today I picked up an Elmar 5cm at a local camera shop for a relatively modest price. I noticed it is engraved with "Property of U.S. Army" and recalled that these "military" lenses and cameras are somehow collectables, so I just picked it up. According to the serial number it was produced in 1946, this would have to be for the occupation forces here in Germany. Does anyone know anything further about this kind of engraving? Is it a collectable or is it something rather common? The mechanics of the lens seem to be in good working order, the glass is pretty dirty (outside) but I don't wanna touch it with my clumsy hands until I know more about the possible value of the lens. I will post a picture later.

John

 

[charjohncarter]

I know nothing about the fine points of Leica, but when I was temporarily stationed in El Salvador in 1970, I was surprised to see a IIIF, a short tele, a 35mm and a 50mm (all property of the U.S. Army). They were in the office of the U.S. Army Military Group in San Salvador. I had a IIIf then and was drolling over the lenses.

 

[Simon Bruxelles]

The lens sounds interesting but I would caution against using a specialist dealer like the Leica Shop as a benchmark of value. Like all specialists they charge a big premium for rarer items. Bear in mind their overheads, the fact it will be serviced and guaranteed and it could be sitting on their shelf for years before it sells. Were you to try to sell the same item you should expect to get half or perhaps a third of the top retail value they might put on it.

 

[nikon_sam]

Sooooo....you going to give it back to the US Army...???😉😀😛

 

[NIKON KIU]

There are more fake engraving than real ones.
Be carefull.

 

[joeswe]

Nice try, but no, I don't think I will return it to the Pentagon. 😀

Regarding the question whether it's a fake... Entirely possible, but it was not advertised as something special and the price I paid is that for a normal early post-war Elmar. So even if it's fake, there was no harm. I live in a town that has been and still is very important for the US forces in Europe, so it seems somehow natural to find a lens like that in a local shop. Actually, I have been seeing the lens sitting in the back of the shop window for at least two years and it never bothered me until today, when they somehow rearranged everything and put this particular lens closer to the window and you could see part of the engraving for the first time. The sales person who showed it to me had no clue of the engraving.


L1130170small von eames68 auf Flickr

 

[LeicaTom]

Hello John!

Very nice talking to you over the phone today 🙂 Schone Grusse nach Wiesbaden!

Yes, what you have there is an original US Army issued Elmar f3.5/50mm lens from 1946, which was once together with a Leica IIIC "Flat Top" camera and possibly a kit?
(35mm and 90mm Elmar and 135mm Hektor, with VIOOH finder and PLOOT reflex housing etc.)

A few hundred of these kits were issued to the US Army in Germany in the 1946 to 49 period as well as later 1950 to 56, with Leica IIIC and IIIF cameras being the base cameras.

US Army Military Police were the main recipients of the gear, along with the Signal Corps and some Engineering Units.

These kits were in use till the 1980's (sounds crazy huh?) but I knew the commander of the Bayreuth US Army MP sub-staion in 1985 still carried a *engraved* 1955 Leica IIIFRDST kit on the company books.

Most used and outdated US Army camera equipment items were SOLD at US Army DRMO auctions in the late 1950's to early 1960's (in Nuremberg and Frankfurt am Main) and the gear found it's way to German Leica collectors, mostly always in a EX or well-used/ ugly condition. (I have never seen engraving's defaced or filled off) the US Army provided de-millitary papers and bills of sale for each sold item, I have seen an original slip for the sale of a 1945 ex-US Army IIIC K Grey camera body for like $22 from a 1958 DRMO open house auction in Nuremberg, Germany.......wow those sure were the days!!!!! 😉

- finding US Army engraved gear in museum quality is nearly impossible, there also seems to be a following from collectors, but the LeicaShop's € 1000 Euro pricetag is a bit unrealistic, the "property" gear should be have about a 20% to 30% added value to a normal price.

Another interesting tidbit of information about the engraving is that art nouveau style is the very same engraving company (sub-contracted/ not Leitz) who engraved the Leica IIIC "Luftwaffen Eigenturm" cameras from 1943 to 1945 (series two style engraving). ~ BTW - cameras and lenses were both engraved "property of" and also "prop. of" - I think he was a lazy cousin related to that one final assembly guy at Wetzlar who messed up like 800 + cameras during Dec. 1945 to Apr. 1946 time frame when all the instruction plates on the bottom of the "stepper" IIIC's were installed
UPSIDE DOWN!!!! -
ja wohl too many schnäpsle makes Wolfgang a funny guy 😀 *prost*

I hope this sheds a little light here about the US Army engraved Leica items from 1946 to ca, 1956.

Enjoy!

Tom

PS: Ohh and just for the curious...........and NO they didn't engrave any 1945 Grey Leica IIIC K's or Chrome 1945 IIIC K's or 1946 "stepper" IIIC's with "property or prop. of"
............just an extremely small amount of Grey and Chrome 1945 IIIC K's got US Army Signal Corps - orange paint stamped triangle's and index numbers on the top plate! (very rare! If someone has one, I'll pay a premium price for it, if's it's original!)

 

[joeswe]

Good morning Tom,
very nice talking to you on the phone and thanks again for sharing all the information. The serial number of the lens is 602xxx, according to Puts' list it belongs to the very first batch of lenses produced in (or allocated for) 1946.
You told me about the guy who buried his Leica in his garden after the war so it would not be confiscated by the US troops... These were hard times when a lot of people readily gave away all their valuables in exchange for a bit of food. The man must have really loved his Leica... or he was a growing a lot of vegetables in his garden!
Have a nice day!
John

 

[David Hughes]

Hi,

I read this last night in an October 1945 camera magazine; "Don't believe all those stories about Leicas being obtained for a hundred cigarettes."

There were also comments to the effect that most people seemed well fed and he commented that England has had food rationing for five years but Germany only had problems during the last stages of the war. I'd scan it but it was English war time printing and on war time paper and very faint.

Of course, I doubt if he was commenting on what he saw in all the zones, or even if the zones had been established by them. If the US managed to get Zeiss staff out of what became the USSR zone then I imagine things were fairly fluid.

Regards, David

 

[charjohncarter]

Leica Tom, again thanks for all this information. 1980!!! 1985!!! And I was somewhat shocked to see one (IIIf) being used in the Army is 1971, by that time the Army was using Nikon F(s), and the Navy chose Beseler Topcon(s).

I forgot (edit) the one being used in El Salvador also was kitted with some kind of document copying device. It was pretty cool.

 

[joeswe]

Hi,

I read this last night in an October 1945 camera magazine; "Don't believe all those stories about Leicas being obtained for a hundred cigarettes."

There were also comments to the effect that most people seemed well fed and he commented that England has had food rationing for five years but Germany only had problems during the last stages of the war. I'd scan it but it was English war time printing and on war time paper and very faint.

Of course, I doubt if he was commenting on what he saw in all the zones, or even if the zones had been established by them. If the US managed to get Zeiss staff out of what became the USSR zone then I imagine things were fairly fluid.

Regards, David

Hello David,
I think the article does not give a correct impression of the situation in post-war Germany. Maybe the situation was not as bad in October of 1945 but it definitely became bad thereafter. The supply situation for the average people was very difficult until as late as 1949. By difficult I mean that people just did not have enough to eat and food was rationed (until January 1950). The infrastructure lay in ruins, agricultural production had taken a hit and Germany had to cope with 12 million refugees from the East. Especially the very cold winter of 1946/47 is remembered as "Hungerwinter" ("winter of famine") in Germany. Because of the severe cold (the coldest winter of the 20th ct), the difficulties with infrastructure and the fact that all of public and private wartime stocks of food, coal and so on had been used up by then, the situation was much more dire then in the years before. Around March 1947, almost two years after the end of the war, the daily ration of food was down to 700 calories. The situation was worst in the big cities. Those who were still strong enough would undertake long walks to the countryside to simply beg for some food or exchange their personal valuables, sometimes even their clothes, for something to bite. The more unfortunate, especially small children and the elderly, died from undernourishment and diseases or simply froze to death. The starvation death toll alone of the "Hungerwinter" is estimated at hundreds of thousand of people. Of course, everything would have been much worse without the efforts of the occupation forces and also the private help from the US and other European countries (e.g. "CARE" parcels) that kicked in during 1946. It is also not my intention to dramatize the sufferings of the Germans. All these sufferings were certainly minor or even minuscule in comparison to the sufferings that the Germans had inflicted on the peoples around them by waging that war. I just want to stress the point that I do think the situation was serious enough that a lot of people would have easily given away their Leica in exchange for a bag of food or a few shovels of coal.
My apologies to everybody for taking this thread a bit off topic... 😱
John

 

[oftheherd]

Leica Tom, again thanks for all this information. 1980!!! 1985!!! And I was somewhat shocked to see one (IIIf) being used in the Army is 1971, by that time the Army was using Nikon F(s), and the Navy chose Beseler Topcon(s).

I forgot (edit) the one being used in El Salvador also was kitted with some kind of document copying device. It was pretty cool.

Wow, my command went to Canon AE-1 about 1977, and there weren't many Graflex or Leica kits left in the command at the time. In fact, in 1975-6, in Korea, we were given a Pentax Spotmatic kit with about 3-5 lenses, one of which was a 1000mm monster. Just about needed a jeep to mount it on. 😀

 

[RF_newbie]

Hey i have been looking for one those 🙂

 

[David Hughes]

Hi John,

As you say "I think the article does not give a correct impression of the situation in post-war Germany.. " but it was printed in 1945. BTW, the article was complimentary about a lot of things and commented on how well off people seemed to be away from the big cities. It was by one of their usual writers and he seemed to be there on official business of some kind, to judge by other comments made.

I'll agree about 46/47 as I can still remember it and 45 in England. Not in detail but many events are clear in my mind and - as I distrust my memory - some have even been confirmed officially. (Done for the sake of the grand children.)

BTW 2, I'd expect Leicas would have to be smuggled into GB as there were a lot of restrictions about their import until 1959/60.

Regards, David

 

[joeswe]

Hello Tom,

thanks for clarifying the meter/feet issue in the "other forum". As you can read there, I got a reply from Mr. Siegfrid Brück of Leica/Leica Museum today who was able to verify with the help of the factory records that my Elmar was indeed delivered to the US Army in July of 1946. He was even so kind to send me a snapshot of the relevant page in the Leica books. I was quite impressed that they still have all these data available after 60+ years. BTW - Tom, I had sent you an Email via the forum a couple of weeks ago, I think you didn't get it, maybe lost in a Spam filter?

In the meantime I have decided to offer the lens for sale in the upcoming Photographica Auction of Rahn AG/Foto Hobby here in Frankfurt --- for anyone who might be interested in the outcome, the results can be seen in their online catalog a couple of days after the auction (it is item #333, Photographica Auction No. 18, Nov. 27, 2011) and I am probably also going to report back here. I also had an offer from Westlicht in Vienna who wanted to acquire the lens, but I decided to rather not sell to them and instead try the auction thing. It's more for the thrills of it anyway, I don't expect to make any serious money by selling it.

 

[Simon Bruxelles]

Just out of curiousity, why would Westlicht want to buy your lens? Aren't they an auction house or do they own the goods they sell? S

 

[joeswe]

Hi John,

As you say "I think the article does not give a correct impression of the situation in post-war Germany.. " but it was printed in 1945. BTW, the article was complimentary about a lot of things and commented on how well off people seemed to be away from the big cities. It was by one of their usual writers and he seemed to be there on official business of some kind, to judge by other comments made.

I'll agree about 46/47 as I can still remember it and 45 in England. Not in detail but many events are clear in my mind and - as I distrust my memory - some have even been confirmed officially. (Done for the sake of the grand children.)

BTW 2, I'd expect Leicas would have to be smuggled into GB as there were a lot of restrictions about their import until 1959/60.

Regards, David

David,
pure coincidence, but a couple of weeks ago, just after we had a discussion here I saw a documentary on German TV that shed some light on the background of the supply situation in Germany during the war. After attacking the Soviet Union in 1941, the Germans were more or less plundering all the crops and food they could get hold of in the areas they had conquered in the east and sent it back to Germany to the effect that the supply situation was still pretty good at the end of the war. The motivation behind that strategy (known as the "Hunger Plan" and also as "Backe Plan", named after the strategy's mastermind, Herbert Backe) was not only to supply the German civilians with more food and keep up the morale, but also at the same time to get rid of the local population in the occupied areas in the East by simply letting them starve. In the end, one of the sick ideas behind the war had been to conquer new areas of settlement for the "Aryan race" in the east and so they had to get rid of part of the local population anyway.

This organized plundering of food in the East explains why the Germans appeared to be surprisingly well fed in the eyes of the British who came here during 1945 (which is reflected in the article you were referring to). It was only after these war time food supplies had been used up in Germany by 1946 that the supply situation in Germany got really dramatic.

John

 

[joeswe]

Just out of curiousity, why would Westlicht want to buy your lens? Aren't they an auction house or do they own the goods they sell? S

Simon,
sorry for the misunderstanding, I should have referred to "Leica Shop Vienna" instead of "Westlicht" (which is their "branding" for their auction activities, if I understand things correctly). Leica Shop Vienna are buying/selling vintage Leica and other photographic stuff on their own behalf through their shop (locally and on the web) and it is them who offered to purchase the lens from me. I had asked them about it as they had already listed a similar lens in their web shop (as discussed earlier in this thread). However, after I had decided to rather put it on auction I felt better to use Rahn AG because they are situated not far from where I live, which made the whole procedure much easier in my eyes.
John

 

[Simon Bruxelles]

Thank you for clarifying that.

 

[LeicaTom]

Hello Tom,

thanks for clarifying the meter/feet issue in the "other forum". As you can read there, I got a reply from Mr. Siegfrid Brück of Leica/Leica Museum today who was able to verify with the help of the factory records that my Elmar was indeed delivered to the US Army in July of 1946. He was even so kind to send me a snapshot of the relevant page in the Leica books. I was quite impressed that they still have all these data available after 60+ years. BTW - Tom, I had sent you an Email via the forum a couple of weeks ago, I think you didn't get it, maybe lost in a Spam filter?

In the meantime I have decided to offer the lens for sale in the upcoming Photographica Auction of Rahn AG/Foto Hobby here in Frankfurt --- for anyone who might be interested in the outcome, the results can be seen in their online catalog a couple of days after the auction (it is item #333, Photographica Auction No. 18, Nov. 27, 2011) and I am probably also going to report back here. I also had an offer from Westlicht in Vienna who wanted to acquire the lens, but I decided to rather not sell to them and instead try the auction thing. It's more for the thrills of it anyway, I don't expect to make any serious money by selling it.

Joe,

I would deal with Rahn, they are a good outfit and I have bought things from them in the past...........I have heard HORROR STORIES about Westlicht and the Leica Shop and my personal dealings with them have been far less than satisfactory.

Tom