true or fake IIIC marine?

[caila77]

I think that 'real value' can be difficult to pin down. To a collector, a 'red dial' camera of a certain sort is worth more (or is it less, I can't recall) than a 'black dial' camera. 'Real value' is what people will pay for a particular item, so it is hard to say that something is 'double its real value'.

However, I would not pay ANYTHING for a camera with a Swastika on it, and I don't understand why anyone else would, either. It's disgusting. If I were given such a camera, I would destroy it, rather than pass it along to another.

With regard to the comments others are making in this thread - such as goods made in repressive governments, or with actual slave labor, etc - I am considering it, and everyone is making good points.

However, I am here talking about a symbol - a Swastika. It is not the Leica camera I am concerned with, or the manner by which it was made; in this case, I am referring to an actual symbol of hatred, engraved on the camera for all to see. This is not about what the camera IS, it is about what the camera now represents.

I would not buy a reproduction camera with a Swastika on it either. The symbol is insulting, degrading, and without redeeming value of any kind.

Best Regards,

Bill Mattocks

Thath's right bill swastika represent a bad "logo", I'm italian and my uncle and my grandpather dead in the war world II..... swastika is a stupid logo, I thing so!
thanks bill for your posts

 

[jean-marc B.]

I think it's a real leica but it's a fake military model. There is a lot of fake military model in Europe.

 

[Ambiguity]

I might as well throw my 2 cents in.

What if the best thing to do to such items from history, swastika symbols and the such is to simply no longer allow the symbol to hold any meaning. Isn't that the ultimate dis-missal/reconciliation/stripping of power?

For anyone who has seen "V for Vendetta", it's the same principle. Symbols are meaningless, it's the value that we apply to them that make them powerful. So therefore, wouldn't the best way for humanity negate their power simply be to no longer respect the evil associated with them? By no means should we forget, but to hold on to these symbols as "evil" and to have this anger/disgust/hatred toward said symbols... aren't we just carrying forward their evil through the years?

Dis-miss their value, dismiss the swastika's symbolism, and you strip it of it's power. It become's no more evil than the Mayfield Dairy Cow sticker on my milk at home.

 

[bmattock]

I might as well throw my 2 cents in.

What if the best thing to do to such items from history, swastika symbols and the such is to simply no longer allow the symbol to hold any meaning. Isn't that the ultimate dis-missal/reconciliation/stripping of power?

Yes, in a perfect world, it is.

However, imagine this. I go out to take photos with a friend of mine, and surprise, surprise, he's Jewish. His grandparents were survivors of the death camps. He looks at me in horror and dismay. I feel like a creep. Now, how do I tell HIM that "Hey, it's just a symbol I'm trying to strip of it's power?"

And if the thing is "just a symbol" then why make them? Why make fake Leicas with swastikas on them? If they mean nothing, why not smiley faces or hammer and sickles or Micky Mouse or whatever? No, the symbol is on the "fake Nazi" Zorkis because the symbol still has power.

For anyone who has seen "V for Vendetta", it's the same principle. Symbols are meaningless, it's the value that we apply to them that make them powerful. So therefore, wouldn't the best way for humanity negate their power simply be to no longer respect the evil associated with them? By no means should we forget, but to hold on to these symbols as "evil" and to have this anger/disgust/hatred toward said symbols... aren't we just carrying forward their evil through the years?

Interesting argument, but no. I am not carrying hatred forward by refusing to own a camera with a symbol of hatred on it.

Shall I then burn a cross on a black family's yard and declare - "Hey, I'm just rejecting hatred here, folks!"

Dis-miss their value, dismiss the swastika's symbolism, and you strip it of it's power. It become's no more evil than the Mayfield Dairy Cow sticker on my milk at home.

I agree that symbols have only the power we give them. But 'we' is the plural that includes the whole of society. It was not that long ago that Germany tried to rid the world of the Jewish race, culture, and religion, and the swastika was the symbol that they used as their emblem. Society as a whole still remembers, still fears, and still suspects anyone who would give respect to that symbol. That may change in time - the swastika was an innocent symbol before being appropriate by the Nazis and may be again in time. But for now, and for the forseeable future, it is an emotionally-charged symbol of hatred, oppression, and genocide.

I won't own anything that has a swastika on it. As a true lover of freedom, I must accept that in a free society, a person can own, carry, and wrap themselves up in a swastika if they wish - no matter what their motives for doing so - but I won't have any truck with it.

Best Regards,

Bill Mattocks

 

[doubs43]

I think it's a real leica but it's a fake military model. There is a lot of fake military model in Europe.

It's in the correct serial number range for a 1941/1942 IIIc Leica and is undoubtedly a genuine Leica wartime IIIc.

The Navy was the only branch of the German military that marked their cameras with a Reichsadler & swastika surmounting the letter M. Verifiable Leicas so marked are rare and do have historical significance. (I don't want to get into the politics as others have. I'm only interested in it's authenticity.)

As Jean-Marc as pointed out, there are many Nazi-marked fakes that include just about any item you can name and collectors have named the fakers who make them "Waffenfabrik USA" or "Waffenfabrik Europe". Some of them are VERY good while others are more easily detected. They take an ordinary period piece and turn it into something "rare".

The Navy markings on the Leica look good....... maybe too good. If I had any interest in bidding, I'd want independent verification that it's genuine and only a real expert could tell. The fakers have gotten too good to judge anything from just photographs.

I once had a discussion on the Exakta board over a similarly marked Exakta camera and lenses. The acknowledged expert stated that only three other such examples were known to exist but when I questioned who was knowledgeable enough to determine that the Exakta in question was genuine WW2 Navy issue, he got all huffy and said that he was. This, in spite of never having laid eyes on the items. I let it go because I wasn't bidding. Had I been interested, I would have wanted a hands-on inspection by an expert in WW2 Nazi markings who could render an opinion. Being an expert on a particular camera and being equally an expert on Nazi military markings are two different things. I could judge the authenticity of the camera but not the markings based only on photographs. The same applies here with this Leica.

Walker

 

[nrb]

When you buy an item marked MADE in CHINA you're buying some thing that was manufactured by someone who was paid a bowl of rice each day to make it. Not far away from working conditions in soviet FED factory, where the orphan children of the murdered by the KGB were put to toil by comerade Felix Edmundovitch.

 

[darkkavenger]

Wartime military-used cameras that have an historical value should end up in military/technical museums for documentary purposes, faked cameras should be ignored or returned to their original condition; other items should be either kept in museums to show the horrors of human madness or be melted down/turned into monuments/statues etc.

If this camera turns out to be a real Marine Leica IIIC, then it certainly has an historical interest to the military, like the Messerschmitt-262 has an important historical and scientific value for the aeronautic community.

No political point of view from me starting from this point, I think pretty much has been said in this thread and the countless dozens of others asking if an engraved Nazi Leica is fake or not. In case you don't understand : the only reason why I would eventually buy such a camera would be to donate it to a state institution for memory purposes.