Contax IIa - Cheers to Henery!

[jano]

Sorry I wasn't clear. I purchased a contax II with lens already CLA'ed from the ebay petrakla seller. They do the CLA themselves. The camera is on its way here, hopefully in the next week or two. I probably overpayed a little based on other ebay auctions (in $25-125 range), but that's okay, hopefully the extra attention they gave the camera will last until I get the camera from Henry.. 😱 I'm leaving myself on the list 😉

 

[darkkavenger]

I joined the list! 😀 Very nice communication with H. Scherer. 🙂

 

[FrankS]

Congrats, Max! Now the wait begins. And the saving! In the end, a completely restored (not just cla'ed) Contax is priceless.

 

[darkkavenger]

I never thought I'd possess a Contax and that in some months it'll be sent to Henry Scherer to be fully restored 😀 I will let you know once it arrives here.

Regards!
max

 

[ricpr]

Just bought a Contax IIIa from a fellow member...... You guys are killin' me. I'll be sending off my $50 deposit to Henry this weekend. I just could not resist the thought of my camera in like new condition. Should be fun.

 

[whitecat]

How long is Henry's list now....time wise?

 

[JoeFriday]

he's up to 81.. average time per repair is about 10 days.. so, 810 days (2 years-plus) for the person at the end of the list

my IIa is reserved in the mid 20s of his list (after 10 months of waiting) and it will still be 9 months til he works on it 🙁

 

[darkkavenger]

I totally agree with you Floyd, since I'm on the list and I see myself move **slowly** down, I think about "maybe I should send my beautiful Jupiter-9 to be CLAed, maybe I should get a 35mm Biogon T instead of bothering myself with two faulty Jupiter-12 lenses, then I also wonder why not getting also a Contax-II body"...

you guys are already scary, but now I can scare myself even alone 😀

 

[darkkavenger]

he's up to 81.. average time per repair is about 10 days.. so, 810 days (2 years-plus) for the person at the end of the list

my IIa is reserved in the mid 20s of his list (after 10 months of waiting) and it will still be 9 months til he works on it 🙁

I'm on #75 which means that my Kiev still has many days of glory ahead of having my Contax-III serviced. 🙂

 

[rover]

Yup, I am #30 but feel good about it. I am thinking that the knowledge that my "new" Contax some day will be here is holding my GAS under control.

 

[xayraa33]

There is a seller on ebay, petrakla, from the netherlands. Apparently they (peter and petra) have a good reputation and "CLA" each camera. I couldn't wait for Henry, so a contax II with pre-war 50 is en-route to California. If there's interest, I'll give my thoughts once I receive it. So far, they have been very responsive, and to summarize what they said, "we did one final check before shiping your camera, found a small issue which wasn't necessary to fix, but we fixed it anyway, sorry your shipment is being delayed a little" -- I thought that was cool, hopefully product will correlate to their attention to detail.

Jano

hmm , there was something about petrakla & Contax awhile back on p. net
http://www.photo.net/neighbor/view-one?neighbor_to_neighbor_id=204552

 

[FrankS]

....wow!....

 

[jano]

That guy lance sure uses a lot of words I memorized in 7th grade english class and then forgot the following year. 😀

It's only one example, and no resolution posted by either party. Although I am a little concerned with the camera right now.. first roll of film looks like each frame was slightly tilted istead of being parallel with the sprockets, and I had two frames overlapped, one at the beginning and one towards the end. The first may have been loading error, and the second not sure. The lens had a slight nick in it (not advertisde) and the aperture blades looked a bit greasy.

To update further once I'm done with this second roll -- just gotta start developing now.

Jano

 

[harry01562]

I wish you luck, Jano. The situation with the film transport doesn't sound good, and a CLA'd lens certainly shouldn't have any residue on the blades.
You may have jumped into a pile of .... well, we hope you didn't.
Please keep the forum informed of any developements with this seller. We are all aware of HS work, and reputation, and I'm sure he is honest in his endeavors. He is certainly not bashful in his promotion, but he also seems to deliver.
It will be a lesson, one way or the other...

Harry

 

[Dougg]

Indeed curious that the story stops there. And it appears no "PEK" incriptions were present on any of the claimed Kiev parts. Could someone have committed atrocities on Overholt's Contax in that initial 4 months, before it was inspected by Scherer?