Nikon SP

(Btw I also checked my 1962 SP, the resistance is near zero, but that 62 SP must have been used at least 50,000 times before I got it from a JP journalist.)

49572259931_0c411e80e0_b.jpg

Nice camera which has been used like a camera !

Yet it's not a 1962 SP. The style of the frames counter cover and the shape and length of the winding lever both tell it's been made before 1962.

At that time, Nikon hadn't gone into their later habit of serial numbers beginning with the two last digits of the manufacturing year.

I have a 1962 SP, one from the first "re-issues" after the 1959-1961 manufacturing pause of the SP at the NKT Sendai factory unit : titanium shutter - just like on the last ones made before they first stopped making them -, frames counter cover identical to the Nikon F and the SP 2005 ones, longer solid winding lever like the Nikon F and the SP 2005 ones, a slightly larger rewind knob, and, what tells it's a 1962 model at first sight, a totally flat self-timer lever.

Its serial is 62301xx. But I used to own the SP 62239xx at some point, and that one had been made before 1962. ;)
 
Glad to hear that OP has resolved the issue.

And thanks Highway 61 for the info. I have learned something about SP numbering.
 
Nice camera which has been used like a camera !

Yet it's not a 1962 SP. The style of the frames counter cover and the shape and length of the winding lever both tell it's been made before 1962.

Ditto on it being a nice looking camera! And also on it being made before 1962. The 6213504 serial number indicates a cloth shutter camera made within the last 500 hundred or so before the switchover to the titanium shutter from 6214xxx. So it actually predates the release of the Nikon F in April 1959.

I have a 1962 SP, one from the first "re-issues" after the 1959-1961 manufacturing pause of the SP at the NKT Sendai factory unit

FYI the flagship cameras up until the F3 (early units) where made at the Nikon 101 building at the Ohi Plant in Shinagawa. Sendai Nikon wasn't established until 1971 and it started out making camera parts.

http://www.sendai-nikon.com/profile/history/index.htm

At that time, Nikon hadn't gone into their later habit of serial numbers beginning with the two last digits of the manufacturing year.

Although the year and serial number do overlap at times for the F and F2(?), it wasn't intentional by Nikon ;)

https://www.destoutz.ch/typ_production_data_f.html
 
Beautiful, It takes a lot to wear off chrome...
If you use to toss your camera in a large canvas shoulder bag with no internal dividers and equally filled with keys, coins, tools, lenses, lenses hoods, film cartridges, sunglasses, filters, watch(es), lenses caps... well it won't really take a lot. ;)
 
This is a GAS inducing thread! I sold my SP back in 2013 when I was in dire need for money and I've regretted it since.
Phil Forrest
 
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