LeicaTom
Watch that step!
It took over two years, but I finally traced the original (second) owner of one of my Grey IIIC K's
1945 Leica IIIC K Grey #390598 K with matching numbers Leitz Elmar f3.5/5cm lens - in it's original ER case with FISON hood, #1 Yellow filter and filter case and a OKARO rangefinder enhancement filter.
The camera was originally issued on August 4th 1945 to a US Army Officer, who in turn turned it over into Switzerland's thriving Black Market.
Enter now the second owner of whom I have traced back it's history.........from 1945!
Inge who is currently 87 years young, was a Danish national who spoke and read fluent English , she had majored in the German language in school and at the end of hostilities she applied for a job with the US Army in Germany as a translator/mail censor (for German language mail) in 1945.
Her advanced language abilities landed her a job as a dual language personal secretary to a High Ranking American Officer, while another young woman who became her best friend at the time......a Swiss girl, worked in the US Army Mail censorship dept. (in Stuttgart, Germany).
She accompanied her girlfriend to Switzerland to visit that girl's relatives and during one of her visits she bought the Leica - quite uncommon for a non American civilian
(let alone a female civilian) to own a Leica in postwar 1945/6 Germany, but that's how Inge acquired the Leica which she owned from late 1945 untill 2009, she was a avid amateur photographer shooting photos across various cities and countries in war-torn Europe................ she later met a Japanese American US Army Officer and married and later moved to America.
In May 2009 after a one week stint at a very well known camera shop I bought her camera........the shop had DAG replace the vulcanite and shutter curtains, otherwise the camera is as-was in 1945. (I only added the FISON hood and the OKARO filter)
I hope to have more to post and some vintage photos to add with Inge's story once I get my Leica website online, so stay tuned!
Enjoy!
Tom
1945 Leica IIIC K Grey #390598 K with matching numbers Leitz Elmar f3.5/5cm lens - in it's original ER case with FISON hood, #1 Yellow filter and filter case and a OKARO rangefinder enhancement filter.
The camera was originally issued on August 4th 1945 to a US Army Officer, who in turn turned it over into Switzerland's thriving Black Market.
Enter now the second owner of whom I have traced back it's history.........from 1945!
Inge who is currently 87 years young, was a Danish national who spoke and read fluent English , she had majored in the German language in school and at the end of hostilities she applied for a job with the US Army in Germany as a translator/mail censor (for German language mail) in 1945.
Her advanced language abilities landed her a job as a dual language personal secretary to a High Ranking American Officer, while another young woman who became her best friend at the time......a Swiss girl, worked in the US Army Mail censorship dept. (in Stuttgart, Germany).
She accompanied her girlfriend to Switzerland to visit that girl's relatives and during one of her visits she bought the Leica - quite uncommon for a non American civilian
(let alone a female civilian) to own a Leica in postwar 1945/6 Germany, but that's how Inge acquired the Leica which she owned from late 1945 untill 2009, she was a avid amateur photographer shooting photos across various cities and countries in war-torn Europe................ she later met a Japanese American US Army Officer and married and later moved to America.
In May 2009 after a one week stint at a very well known camera shop I bought her camera........the shop had DAG replace the vulcanite and shutter curtains, otherwise the camera is as-was in 1945. (I only added the FISON hood and the OKARO filter)
I hope to have more to post and some vintage photos to add with Inge's story once I get my Leica website online, so stay tuned!
Enjoy!
Tom
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