Oskar the Leica
Image by tim_d
Latest acquisition – a Leica IIIa rangefinder, manufactured in 1936. I hope I look as good and work as well when I’m 71. There’s a bit of brassing around the areas that get handled, and the collars around the rangefinder windows are missing – but it winds like the bearings are made of butter. The care and precision that must have gone into making these things is unbelievable – it’s just amazing that something so small and compact could last so long and so well.
Unfortunately there’s no way of knowing what it’s been doing for the last 70 years, but it’s quite sobering to think that this was built in the year of the Berlin Olympics, the first television service, the start of the Spanish Civil War and the launch of the Queen Mary.
The lens is a Russian Industar 22 50mm f3.5 from some time in the mid-50s, which came off a FED 1 copy of the Leica design. At first glance, the two are identical, but once you pick them up and wind them, you realise that the FED is a tractor to the Leica’s Mercedes.
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