David Hughes
David Hughes
David, thanks for the info. I did think it was probably in Russian, but other langauges also use the Cyrillic alphabet and not knowing exactly what the paper was, I had to hedge my bets.
Alfa2 on the USSRphoto forum says there shouldn't be any string in the construction. I can't see how the green string would get in there but I can guess that the white string is from a label which hasn't been removed, although I've no idea what the soft-ish brown stuff that the white string rests on in the photo is.
All part of the service.
BTW the focal length shows its Contax heritage. You can find a lot about it if you do a search* in Russian for the lens but the answer will be in Russian and won't tell you much. You can look at the pictures and if you like puzzles and have a long boring journey to do...
I wondered if the string was an attempt at repairing a light seal but it shouldn't be needed. OTOH, who knows and string is a well known and respectable seal (if we are talking about Japanese cameras).
Regards, David
* there's a lot about Russian books and catalogues here:-
https://www.rangefinderforum.com/forums/showthread.php?p=2850066#post2850066