I've read conflicting reports online about the production years for this camera. In one account, the camera was produced continuously from 69 to 76. In the other account, from 69 to 71-72 when it was replaced by the 35spn.
I have three. The markings on the pressure plate are preceded by a kanji that I can't translate. Here are the codes, with the letter K representing the kanji.
K 0 9 - camera serial #277xxx
K 0 Y - #281xxx
K 1 X - #328xxx
If you go by the theory that the kanji stands for factory, the second mark for year (0=1970, 1=1971) and the third mark for month, then what would the X and Y stand for on my cameras? My guess would be they used a number for months January through September (1-9) and then switched to a letter for months October, November and December (X, Y and Z respectively) because they didn't want to stamp a 2 digit month code.
If our theory holds, we should be able to confirm production years. If someone out there has a camera marked K 6 Z then they have a 1976 produced SP.
Another interesting side note on this theory is tracking production numbers. If you look at the camera codes I posted, you can see that they made somewhere upwards of 4000 cameras in between September and November of 1970.
