Limited Edition FED-2 cameras?

Unless it says specifically that the cameras were engraved in 1970, I'd assume that the work has been done at a later date, ie in the last year or so, like every other 'commemorative' Soviet camera on eBay.
 
The Russians can fake a FED or a Zorki into a limited edition for any event that ever occured on the planet.

This camera never was issued as such. There's a cr*pload of Russians dismantling old RF cameras and 'rebuilding' them as ultra special limited edition models.

As far as I know there was a number of Zorki-zorkis with two engravings, and a 'Jubilee' or 'Festival' edition of either a FED or a Zorki, in 1957 I think, to commemmorate a communist festival jamboree kinda thing, and that was it. No other special limited editions.

IIRC that is, other members may have more specific information.

This one is a fake and it is doubtful they put it back together as it should be.
 
That camera is too early a model to have been made in 1970, irrespective of any other information! It's a late 50s model and the lens is much newer. FED2 models were made with a dark blue, red or green vulcanite but it's so dark as to be almost black in a photograph. It's easy to see that the whole bodyshell has been painted on this one. Absolutely fake.

There were Moscow Olympics 1980 commemorative FED5s made, along with Zorki 4s. The only other commemorative I've seen is the 1957 Youth Festival version Zorki C. Every other commemorative or limitied edition seems to be a definite fake or highly dubious.
 
There were few commemorative editions - they turned out tens of thousands with Olympiad or Spartakiad logos for the years in which the respective events were staged in the USSR, presumably marketing them towards the event tourists. But beyond that, the only genuine ones I've seen so far were individually dedicated engravings.

And I have never seen a genuine "limited edition" serial on a Soviet camera - all genuine dedicated and commemorative ones seem to be numbered within the regular series. Any genuine irregular numbers that occur seem to be on test models, rejects and other internal "not for sale" cameras, or on cameras sold as part of some other equipment bearing the number of whatever microscope, periscope or x-ray system they were incorporated in - i.e. nothing decoratively engraved.

And there are no genuine black paint ones either.
 
There was also the Zorki-4 having a red hammer and sickle on the top plate, produced to mark the 50th anniverary of the founding of the USSR.
 
There are also a set of FED-2 of the third variant (mushroom shaped knob, flash sync, and speed progression of 30, 60...) which had unusual serial numbers. The serials had a letter prefix, followed by a set 5 or 6 digits. There is a possibility that someone may peddle this as a rarity or 'prototype' or special edition FED-2. Not quite since many of these cameras bearing this odd serial numbers were made.
 
fanshaw said:
There was also the Zorki-4 having a red hammer and sickle on the top plate, produced to mark the 50th anniverary of the founding of the USSR.
Click to expand...
The one with "Hummer and Sickle" is original, but it brings only little extra money and has almost no value. Actually the whole dedication is funny. Nobody was thinking about collectors - they had to produce something special for the party congress. Sometimes it was just an imprint on a camera. If someone thinks it was a higher quality product - this is not true. A FED was just a FED even in the special party congress editions. Although the Hummer and sickle cameras looked much better than a "Lunokhod" junk.

A few years ago, I made a little present to my friend. It was a pre-war FED camera with a new engraving "To Comrade ... for the achievements in military training! From Group of Comrades" It was fun, we laughed a lot and drank some vodka. All these engravings should be considered with a big 😀.
 
Haha well.. being that I'm a Leica user myself and wanted to explore the world of Russian cameras, I unfortunately fell into this trap prior to creating this thread and purchased a copy from a different seller. I'll report back and let you know if this is, indeed, a fully functional camera despite its non-purist exterior.

The paint job for my copy is a black / red body.
 
The camera works.

I purchased a red body / black repaint similar to the ebay auction I linked to in the original post. Vertical infinity-focus rangefinder alignment aside, the camera is in great shape.

Here are some scans from my shoot two days ago. Fomapan 100 Classic / 7.5 minutes @ 75F Kodak D76, V500 scanner:

attachment.php


attachment.php


attachment.php
 

Attachments

  • Scan-101007-0002.jpg
    Scan-101007-0002.jpg
    34 KB · Views: 0
  • Scan-101007-0003.jpg
    Scan-101007-0003.jpg
    24.8 KB · Views: 0
  • Scan-101008-0011.jpg
    Scan-101008-0011.jpg
    27.8 KB · Views: 0
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom