Not sure what to make of this on my III

[jdt]

Many years ago I inherited several Leicas from an uncle. The M3 I used for about 20 years. The Barnacks were mostly displayed, and only used occasionally. I always assumed they were original.

However, since joining this forum (which I LOVE btw), I'm not so sure they are original. Both my III and IIIa have a flash port (post?). My uncle was not the type of guy to have something done to his Leicas by anyone other than Leitz.

Just curious what anyone can tell me about how these might have gotten there. Was this a normal thing to do to Barnacks in the day? I looks to be well done.

 

[Keith]

I bought a ll years ago that had very similar fittings ... done very neatly. That said I subsequently had the camera CLAd by Youxin Ye and got him to remove it and recover the camera ... which for me improved the appearance considerably.

 

[Schuter]

I had a similar situation with a iiic, with a plate-mounted flash sync in about the same location. Besides being mounted crooked, it was sharp and in an awkward place. It made me mad every time I looked at it. I carefully de-soldered the connections without disturbing the mechanism and removed it. This, of course, left three holes in the camera body, two screw holes and the hole for the flash sync connection. I stripped the existing vulcanite, filled the holes with JB Weld (a reinforced epoxy resin), sanded it smooth inside and out, and re-covered the camera with new leatherette that I ordered online. It was a fun little project, and now it looks and feels like new.

 

[Mr_Flibble]

It's definitely a third party upgrade, I have (had) a number of Leicas with flash shoes added to the front or top.
Consensus seems to be that a flash socket like this takes away from the camera's collector's value, and that makes them cheap enough for me to buy 😉

 

[Steve M.]

Yep, the flash hook up has been added, and as mentioned will lower the value to collector. To a photographer though, it may raise it's value in useability.

It wouldn't take much skill to remove that flash plug-in, and fill in the hole to match the rest of the camera's body covering. Would that be on the up and up? Sure. I hope that people don't assume that a restored car or piece of crockery or whatever has never been repaired sometime in it's life.

 

[jdt]

Thanks for the responses. I'll probably just leave it. These cameras have far more sentimantal value than actual value to me. I'll never sell them.

The work was probably done before 1950's since he bought an M3 (DS) and never used his III or IIIa after that. I'm just really suprised that he would have anyone other than Leica work on his cameras.

Since it's been there that long, I'll probably just leave it, and my fingers never seem to hit it so it really doesn't bother me.