Dan Tamarkin here from Tamarkin Camera in downtown Chicago. The white gloves are
out so it's auction time. I want to show you some of the exciting pieces that
we're going to have in our November 17th Rare Camera Auction. Here in front of me
are three wartime Leica cameras and these were made during World War II.
We have some interesting features to them. The first one that I want to show you is
kind of a run-of-the-mill camera these other two are kind of special so this is
a Leica 3c. It has kind of an interesting serial number 371 173, kind
of interesting. Leica 3c's that were made during the war have a little
step where the rewind lever and advance lever is set. And so you can tell
just by looking at a 3c camera if it has that little step it's a wartime camera.
This particular camera is outfitted with a red shutter curtain and the story goes
that they simply ran out of black shutter curtains so they started using
red during the war. These cameras are hard to find that are still working with
their shutters red shutters intact. So this camera will appear in our upcoming
auction. Then during the last days of the Second World War
all of the 3c cameras were finished in gray lacquer and this one is marked with
a 'K' which means that it was cold weatherized and it has special kinds of
ball bearings inside of it and these are very very hard to find cameras. This
one's working well. It has a little 'K' stamped on the shutter and that
indicated that the camera was indeed made for cold weather with these special
ball bearings. So you'll notice it has the wartime step there. This one does
not have a red curtain but it does have the 'K' marking number 389424 K.
Very few of these cameras were made and very few survived
the war and so this is an original and authentic 3ck camera.
The rarest of the three that we have here is a camera that was made for the
Luftwaffen which is the German air force and this case is imprinted "Luftwaffen
Eigentum" which means Air Force property. Unfortunately, the case has
become separated but we still have the original camera here and this camera was
made for the German airforce and it has special markings on it
that indicate that it was indeed made for the Luftwaffen and you can see on the
back of this camera it says Luftwaffen Eigentum stamped into the vulcanite
covering and it has what's called an F L number and this was a German
contract number and so we have here a few kind of special wartime Leica. The
3c with the red curtain, Luftwaffen Eigentum (Air Force property) and the 3cK
camera in a stunning grey lacquer and when you see it in person you can tell
the difference between the gray and the black I'm sure that here in the video it
might be a little murky but it is indeed grey and it's a very handsome paint
finish. I want to show you another very special camera that we came across. This
is something that you don't see every day. This is a Leica 3 with chrome
fittings. camera's working very well. This was made before the war. This camera was
not made during wartime but it appears to have belonged to an SS officer or
somebody involved in the German SS because it carries here an emblem of the
SS. So this is also while it wasn't made during the war it has wartime
significance and you'll find each of these cameras in our upcoming auction
along with lots more pictures and a more vibrant description than I've given them
here and you can read all about them and feel free to ask us questions and feel
free to learn more about the history of Leica and certainly
the stuff that happened during the war and also before and after the war. You
can see all of this stuff on our auction website which we'll be launching soon in
preparation for the November auction. Thanks very much for watching.