The "Germany" engraving

[Jerevan]

This has maybe been asked before ...

Was there ever any special engraving policy when it came to Leicas that were sent overseas or to other country than Germany? Some cameras have the "Germany" engraved and some do not.

Or was it made on a case by case basis? Is it correct to assume that ones not engraved with "Germany" actually never went out of mainland Europe?

Did this engraving exist both in the pre- and the postwar era?

 

[Filzkoeter]

Post-war Leitz items seem all to have the Germany engraving, no matter if export-items or not.
I'm not sure about pre-(/during-)war items.

 

[Erik van Straten]

Pre-war and wartime "Germany" engraving usually means that the camera or the accessory is exported.

Erik.

 

[David Hughes]

For export into America the country of origin had to be marked on the item. That explains why it's always in English. Also the Act dates from1871 and so it very useful for dating things in other fields.

Regards, David

 

[Jerevan]

I thought about whether it was correct that a camera (wartime one in this particular case) could be designated as a "non-export" model if did not have the engraving.

Thanks, gentlemen! 🙂

 

[David Hughes]

I'd imagine that most of their normal production was abandoned during the war as they concentrated on supplying the armed forces. The same thing happened in Britain. I also guess that they lost sales to the USA once it entered the war, later on...

So the export or non-export split didn't exist for a few years. But since the engraving of the top plates was probably done in a batch you'll find oddities. Especially when old broken ones were stripped for parts and so on. Again, a similar thing happened in Britain.

Regards, David