Canonet 17 mystery

[ContaxRTSFundus]

Hi everyone,

I have just bought a Canonet 17 which is winging its way to the UK and should arrive in about 10 days time. I'm usually a Contax/Yashica or Fujifilm rangefinder user and so have no previous experience with Canon. I checked on the Canon museum website and can't find any reference to my version of the camera; it says Canonet 17 on the top plate and features the words: QUICK LOADING on the front of the top plate but all the references I can find, including those on the Canon website, show a QL logo on the front plate. It will arrive with a hard case which simply has Canon QL on its nose. Does anyone here know what version of a Canonet 17 I've acquired? Could it be a pre-production model as I can't find another one with that lettering? Also, most of the Canonet 17 references show a 40mm f1.7 and not the 45mm one on my camera.

I've added a piccie from the auction site - it's low quality but you can see the front of the camera and the lens. Fingers crossed that a member of this Forum can bring enlightenment....

Thank you for reading this...

 

[BrianShaw]

Read this. The question has been asked before on another forum and, I believe, answered by a Mr Yee.

https://www.photo.net/discuss/threads/information-please-canonet-ql17-not-giii.498156/

and this discusses the design characteristics of the “early model”:

https://camerapedia.fandom.com/wiki/Canon_Canonet_QL_17_/_QL_19_/_QL_25

 

[Paul Howell]

Here is a link the manual

https://www.cameramanuals.org/canon_pdf/canonet_g-iii_17.pdf

 

[John Koehrer]

Simply a SWAG but could it be Japan or European market camera?

 

[ContaxRTSFundus]

Thank you guys; especially Brian Shaw for the links to the explanation. I have the Canon Pellix with the QL system but am looking forward to popping a film into the Canonet; it's arriving in the company of a lovely Yashica Electro 35 CCN so I get to play with two very different RFs... Should be fun.

 

[Chan Tran]

Perhaps you have a made in Japan camera?

 

[Andrew O'Neill]

This camera was probably a Japan release only... or it was the very first of its series?