Do we know when in 1939 the Leica III was discontinued?

[landsknechte]

Barring the opening of the arcane tomes that contain the production records of individual Leicas, it just dawned on me that I could use the fact that the production of the Leica III ceased in the year that mine was manufactured to at least give me some clue when mine was manufactured.

Do we know when in 1939 the Leica III was discontinued?

 

[Roger Hicks]

Paul-Henry van Hasbroeck gives the 1939 batch as only 100 cameras (342,901 to 343,100) and given the way Leica worked (and works) I'd not want to bet that they were all made as a single batch in a few days or even weeks.

It's also entirely possible that the entire batch serial number sequence wasn't used up and that a few III models were assembled later. After all, the last Wetzlar full-frame IIIa was probably made in 1950.

Cheers,

R.

 

[landsknechte]

That's strange, I've seen some figures as high as 5900.

 

[dll927]

Steve Gandy's site has (or at least used to ) the serial number runs of Leicas. So it shouldn't be too hard to nail down when a particular one was made.

I've seen the same question come up about some Vivitar lenses. It seems that at various times, different manufacturers were involved. But going by the serial number, you can determine who made it.

 

[Roger Hicks]

Ah; I may have misread him, Of course the last BATCH may have been just 100 -- not the year's production. That's probably it, in fact; I took it one way, and it was meant another. Sorry.

Cheers,

R.

 

[landsknechte]

I'm pretty confident of when my camera was made, in terms of the year. It's pretty well centered in the middle of the range for every list that I've come across. What I was hoping for was anything that might be able to help narrow down when in 1939. If there was a reference somewhere mentioning the last III coming off the the assembly line in September (for example), that would let me know that mine was made January through September.

Now, if we could get Leica to dust off the old tome that contains the really specific info (i.e. shipped to a dealer in Berlin on April 3, 1939), I would be a seriously happy camper. It drives me crazy knowing the information is out there, but inaccessable.

 

[bob cole]

Do we know when in 1939 the Leica III was discontinued?

Barring the opening of the arcane tomes that contain the production records of individual Leicas, it just dawned on me that I could use the fact that the production of the Leica III ceased in the year that mine was manufactured to at least give me some clue when mine was manufactured.

Do we know when in 1939 the Leica III was discontinued?

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here's what Jim Lager says in his ""An Illustrated History," Vol. 1, cameras: