So I’ve always liked to collect cameras. The majority of them are not terribly rare or valuable, just interesting. My favorite cameras are Leica’s, which unfortunately are quite expensive to collect. I have one that I use but it’s not really a collectible, it’s just a tool. During World War II, Leica made cameras for civilians and for the military.

They usually marked the military ones with which branch of service they were going to be used in. Luftwaffen-Eigentum for the Air Force, Heer or W.H. (Wermacht Heer) for the Army, and M or M with a Reichsadler (Swastika with Eagle) for the Navy. If they had a special shutter with ball bearings for more robustness especially in the Eastern Front, they were usually labeled with a K by the serial number, and or a K on the shutter curtain itself. The IIIc with a step by the rewind switch w as the version made during the war. Since I love both Leica cameras and all things WW2, my goal was always to own a IIIc for my collection. I had decided long ago that it would be so hard and unlikely to ever find a real military version that I was going to have to be satisfied with one made during the war that was of the same look and design but for civilians.

These cameras were introduced in 1942 and are marked with a capital K after the serial number and on the. Both Leica IIIC and Leica cK cameras were.

No one knows how many military versions are still in existence but it is thought to be in the hundreds that survived the war. Most were either lost during, or were defaced after. Most Germans after the war did not want to be seen with something with military engravings in case they were thought a Nazi, so they would usually sand or grind off the markings so they couldn’t be seen anymore. Many of the authentic ones that survive now were war spoils brought home by Allied soldiers after the war. Unfortunately, at some point along the way people started realizing there was a market both for Leica’s and for Nazi items. The combination of both was pretty tempting for some people. Consequently, there are far more fakes than original WW2 military Leica’s in existence.

If you check ebay right now you will probably find 3-4 pages worth of fake ones and most likely, not a single legitimate one. Last week, someone I know asked if I could look over all of their cameras. They had belong to his parents and he was looking to get rid of them. He mentioned one was a Nazi camera. I had my suspicions but said of course I’d look at them and let him know what to do with everything, if any of it had value etc. On Wednesday I met him at church to look over all of his bags. He kept showing me camera after camera but was holding out on the Leica til the end.

Finally we got to it. My first glance was that it did indeed look authentic. It wasn’t one of the obvious fakes. He said his dad had owned it from the late 1940’s when he’d been in Germany after the war.

Prison Break Season 5 Download Utorrent. There weren’t many forgeries going on then because no one was really thinking of collecting 60 years ago. Tp-link Tl-wn723n Driver Windows 7 64 Bit here. After spending a few minutes looking it over I decided it was good enough that I needed to do more research. I contacted several authorities on Leica’s of that vintage and after sending serial numbers and photos of the different parts of the camera, they were able to confirm that it was indeed authentic.