Fake Contax Zeiss Ikon

[johank]

I have in my posseion a fake Contax Zeiss. It is a model III with serial number 123. It was deliverd from Ukraina. It has a Sonnar 1:2 50 marked Carl Zeiss Jena, but looks like a Russian Helicon.
Best setback to Russian production is Return handle with Speed Seeting in Russian way.
Bag is marked Contax too.

Who did they fool? Did the fakes really bring any dollars to the east?

Any idea when it was maked? It works Ok and takes sharp pictures.

 

[samsnch]

That's a Kiev III there. Lots of fake Contaxes are really abound, especially on auction sites. Can you post some pictures of the camera, esp. the serial number?

 

[sevo]

Post pictures please!

There have been quite a few fake Contaxes, mostly in the early nineties, when unemployment and opened borders drove the many Soviets to sell their treasures on Western flea markets, where they soon discovered that German antique stores sold cameras looking like a spitting image of their Kiev for twenty times the Kiev street price. The boom years were short - early Kievs soon appreciated while the Contax got cheaper, and FSU income levels and exchange rates stabilized as well. Today the price difference between Kiev III and Contax III is too low to make it worth while.

But there also have been non-fake Kiev/Contax intermediates and hybrids - both as intermediate products of the war reparation transfer of the former Contax plant to Kiev, and when the Contaxes brought home by Russian soldiers later needed a repair in the USSR.

 

[johank]

I added some pictures but sofare none of them have appered.

Peter Hennig dated it as ca 1974, slotted front.

Factory number only on top-shoe 123. 3/8" screwhole for tripod, bump on bottom plate.

Johan

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