|
|
Post by kiev4a on Sept 13, 2006 9:22:26 GMT -5
Can't get over the number of people who bite on Leica fakes made from old FSU cameras. Even worse, most of the recent fakes are made from the Zorki C (S) models which only slightly resemble a screw-mount Leica because of the tall RF housing. The fakers use that model because they are worth almost nothing in their original form.
The counterfits that are allegedly ex-German military, with Nazi emblems, seem to be the most popular. In truth, almost no Leicas were engraved with the swastika. Also saw a Kiev recently that allegedly was a Soviet officer's camera--almost certainly a fake.
Usually the fakes look like new on the outside because they have been repainted but many were used for that purpose because they were in a mess internally and externally and the internal problems are often not fixed during the makeover.
Some folks buy the fakes because they are oddities but many really think they are getting a rare Leica at a bargain price. P.T. Barnum said "there's a sucker born every minute" and it holds true a century later.
|
|
|
|
Post by doubs43 on Sept 13, 2006 12:52:10 GMT -5
Wayne, some sellers openly state that their wares are not original but too many try to pass off fakes that range from laughable to almost impossible to tell for certain. It's those latter ones that bother me. When we get into big bucks, I don't buy anything I can't examine first hand. It's safer that way and I don't end up as an example of P.T. Barnum's theory! He was correct, ya know!  Walker |
|
|
|
Post by herron on Sept 13, 2006 15:01:30 GMT -5
It's also gotten so that folks sell them as Leica fakes, clones, look-alikes, etc. -- as if that made them a better deal.
Like Walker, I agree that the ones that come close are the most dangerous, and the most likely to attract big dollars for shoddy material. PT Barnum really knew that folks want to believe...even when the evidence is mostly outrageous!
There's an article in the current UK "Amateur Photographer" publication about a gentleman who found a Leica III in a boot sale for £5...and the reviewer seems to think it's real...but that has to be a 1-in-more-than-a-million find!
|
|
|
|
Post by wolves3012 on Oct 20, 2006 18:07:21 GMT -5
|
|
PeterW
Lifetime Member
Member has Passed
Posts: 3,804
|
Post by PeterW on Oct 21, 2006 17:21:13 GMT -5
Hmmmm. Well, Leica it ain't of course, and no Elmar lens ever looked like that one. Mind you, the seller's put "Leica" in quotes so he knows it's a fake, but I think his estimate of its age is somewhat out. Can't be certain without examining it, but it looks rather like a FED2 just before the FED 3 with the larger top plate, so that puts it well post-WW2. The serial number is a little indistinct in the picture but as near as I can make out it's for a Leica IIf of 1951, so the eagle and swastika would be a bit of an anachronism, as would DRP, standing for Deutsches Reich Patent. The third Reich ended in 1945.
He's also somewhat optimistic on his estimate of its value. At the last camera fair I went to about eight months ago there were a couple of Polish dealers offering FSU cameras, and both chromium and gold-plated Leica fakes - as fakes, or reproductions as they called them, and the plating was in much better condition than this one looks.
I got talking with one of them that I'd seen several times before and from whom I bought a Zenit 3M a couple of years ago, and he told me he could order me any copy I wanted, either of a commemorative FED or Zorki or any screw-thread bottom-loading Leica I fancied with any engraving I fancied, and an appropriate serial number.
The price? £65 (roughly $130), plus £5 extra if I wanted gold plating, plus shipping from Poland. Or when it was ready he would email me before he came over to his next UK camera fair and bring it with him. All he wanted to order it was a £10 deposit. And he guaranteed that while the top and bottom plates were off being filled, engraved and replated the chassis would have a CLA and be in good working order. I said thanks, but no thanks.
PeterW
|
|
|
|
Post by wolves3012 on Oct 21, 2006 17:30:39 GMT -5
Well no it's no Leica but I was apalled at just how blatantly fake it is, together with his BIN price. Even the starting price is highly optimistic. Next I noticed the private feedback. I've also realised that I've seen him listing cameras before, looking equally dodgy, though I can't recall what exactly he had.
Even if it weren't re-badged it looks rather poor. The thing that I find amusing is that no Leica collector would touch it and I can't see many people wanting to part with that much money if they aren't savvy on Leicas. Then again, they do say a fool and his money...
I have it in my watched items to see if someone's mug enough to bite. Someone from RFF sent him a message saying it was a FED 2 but I notice he's not showing that information, quelle surprise!
|
|
PeterW
Lifetime Member
Member has Passed
Posts: 3,804
|
Post by PeterW on Oct 21, 2006 19:28:49 GMT -5
Sorry, I misread the serial number. The number rightly belongs to a Leica IIIc of 1949.
PeterW
|
|
|
|
Post by wolves3012 on Oct 31, 2006 17:14:01 GMT -5
Well, someone bit - it sold at the starting price of £75. I hope the poor soul that bought it doesn't believe it's genuine and I hope its insides are better than its outsides!
|
|
