Best user Barnack

[Dralowid]

My Leica III in black and nickel has number 194331 (1936).


Erik.

If you look at this old thread you will see I posted two black and chrome cameras. Note the serial numbers which makes them 1936 also (I think).

I no longer have them, sold them both.

https://www.rangefinderforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=171278&highlight=black+chrome

 

[Erik van Straten]

I posted two black and chrome cameras. Note the serial numbers which makes them 1936 also.

After 1936 there are no longer black and nickel cameras, only chrome and black and chrome.

I feel very stupid now that I once could buy a black and nickel SCNOO but that I didn't. I have a black and chrome one, nice, but the black and nickel one was so beautiful. It must have been from 1936 too.

Erik.

 

[besk]

The Leica IIIg was the only Barnack Leica I got rid of...I just could not bond with it and got a Leica IIIc instead.

There was something about the improvements on the IIIg that made it feel that I might as well use my M3 instead if I wanted really good improvements.

The IIIg was not bare-bones enough for the Barnack experience in my opinion.

If I don't want to use my IIIf (rd) then I jump to my M6. I have always felt that way.

 

[xayraa33]

xayraa, I stood in the shop in Tokyo with both the iii black/nickel and the lllg on the counter... and even though i had wanted a g for decades..... i had exactly the same feeling. The lllg was big and heavy enough, i knew it may as well be an M.

Flickr

Yes, that is how I felt too...the idea of getting a Barnack Leica was the charm of stripped down simplicity and the IIIg was not that or a marvel of improvements either, its larger size than the svelt production screw-mount Leicas it superseded made it rather clumsy looking, the better viewfinder was not enough as an enticement to keep it.

The only regret I had was that I did not buy it the day I first saw it in a camera shop's window...as it was sporting a rare rigid LTM 50mm Summicron, but the lens was sold sans the camera body hours later to a Leica collector.. so I bought the IIIg three days later but with a 35mm f3.5 Summaron lens.

 

[Dralowid]

After 1936 there are no longer black and nickel cameras, only chrome and black and chrome.

I feel very stupid now that I once could buy a black and nickel SCNOO but that I didn't. I have a black and chrome one, nice, but the black and nickel one was so beautiful. It must have been from 1936 too.

Erik.

I haven't looked at the production numbers but it looks as though they were busy in 1936. I haven't got a catalogue for the year but it seems the product line included at least Standard, II, 250, III, IIIa

The overlap gets curious. According to Sartorious you could buy a III, a IIIa and a IIIb in 1938.