Leica IIIc - kinda provenance/history ?

[dee]

I have one truly fine IIIc , early 50's .
Another is 1946-7 batch , good , but not matching the other in finish .

However , the 1946/7 is not only my birth year [ late number means probably 1947 ] but has the remains of a Wallace Heaton sticker from the shop in London's Bond Street which I often visited in the 60s/70s [ after it was taken over by Dixons ]

I could be tempted to part with the 50s IIIc , but never the 1946.

I like the fact that it is a UK import and that I know where it originated in UK.
I have just one other camera with a similar 'provenance'- a TOE import mint boxed Kiev 4a .

Does anyone prefer some kind of history to a camera ?

dee

 

[dougcee]

Yes, I think that really adds to my appreciation of any camera, especially a Leica with some history like yours.🙂

 

[dougcee]

Oh, how about some pictures of these two?🙂

 

[BillBingham2]

Looking for a 1959 Nikon RF....

B2 (;->

 

[dee]

Still can't work out how to post pics.
I am a bit in awe of a camera made around my Birth which still works exqusitely .
Dee

 

[Vince Lupo]

I posted this a few years back, but this is my personal favourite camera that I've owned in which I was able to trace a history:

Leica IIIa, 1937. A bit of Googling revealed that she was born in Solingen in 1918 (so she possibly acquired this camera at age 19!) and died in a plane crash along with her husband at Lake Rupanco in Chile in 1977. Her husband was a German ambassador of some kind to Chile.

The name 'Plumacher' is also well-known in Solingen as being part of the steel industry (Solingen is like the Sheffield of Germany), so perhaps she came from that family.

Not bad for a 'bargain' purchase from KEH!

 

[Vince Lupo]

Not a Leica screwmount, but another piece of equipment I just picked up that has a provenance (I blacked-out his address):

 

[scigeek]

Leica were able to find my 1940's 111c. They shipped it to a dealer in Genoa as a new camera in a batch of 12 in Dec 1940.
Its a wartime red-blind so it all fits.

It's a user, not a fondler, but the provenance is very important to me too.

 

[Pioneer]

I own an Agfa Super Isolette that was supposedly built in 1954 but I have not been able to independently confirm that as I can't find serial number ranges for any of my Agfa/Ansco cameras. It works wonderfully but I know it was cleaned up and lubricated six or seven years ago by (Certo6) and later was sent to Ken Ruth for a shutter overhaul.

I also own a very nice double stroke M3 that I know was built in early 1954 and then shipped to Canada for sale. It seems to work well but one of the lenses than came with it is definitely in need of cleaning.

EDIT - Of course I also own a very nice Leica M-A which I happen to know has a provenance of Germany to San Francisco to me in late October 2014. It has made some of the sharpest photographs I have seen when used together with my Zeiss Planar 50/2. 🙂

 

[02Pilot]

Aside from cameras given to me by relatives (now in their 70s and 80s, so certainly with some history), the one I have some clue about is a sharkskin IIIc, purchased with a Summitar attached, in a case, with the manual (in English) and Focal Press Leica guide. All the dates match up to 1949. The manual is stamped "Photo Hildenbrand - Stuttgart Stockgeräude" and had a typed note inside that reads "Gebrauchsanleitungen zur Leica-Kamera IIIc in französischer Sprache sind nicht vorrätig." It remained in use (by someone) at least as late as November of 1968, as that is the printing date (or more likely revision date) of the ASA 80 Kodacolor-X that I found tucked in the case. I can only infer beyond that, but it would appear that a native French-speaker purchased the kit in Stuttgart in 1949. How it ended up in New York in 2015 I do not know.