Thread: 1933 Leica?
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Old 06-05-09, 21:25
Adey Baker's Avatar
Adey Baker Adey Baker is offline  
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The Hektor F2.5 is an interesting lens instead of the more common Elmar F3.5. My 'Leica Manual' from 1947 states that '...with 100% increase in speed and a slight decrease in sharpness at full aperture, (it) was so designed that even if the iris was closed only to F4.5 or F6.3 the sharpness equalled if not surpassed that of the pictures of the Elmar 50mm.' I wouldn't expect great wonders from an uncoated lens, though. 10,600 units were made between 1930 and 1948.

As a general rule with screw-thread Leicas, 1 series have no rangefinder on the top plate, 11 series have the rangefinder and 111 series have the slow-speed dial on the front of the camera below the normal shutter-speed dial on the top plate.

Your camera is obviously a genuine Leica but for anyone looking to collect them beware that there are a number of fakes around based on the 11 series (probably the other series as well, but many 11s were churned out quite recently in Kiev and often have fake Nazi type symbols on them!). Remove the lens and the genuine Leicas have round cam-followers for the rangefinder whereas the fakes have a sort of 'rounded triangular' shape cam-follower.
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