I Feel Like A Sucker.....

[PentaxBronica]

My suggestion to anyone purchasing previously used equipment is ... if possible by from a reputable dealer or party with a definite return policy and if possible take a roll of film with you, expose it all shutter speeds and apertures and develop the film. While that may not be 100% fool-proof it is a pretty good test. So far that has worked for me except for one time when I traded some equipment I no longer used for a Hasselblad back to one of the major dealers. The back they sent was misrepresented and replaced with one that was not much better. I felt I had been taken and quit buying supplies from them. Five years after that a representative of that company posted on APUG that they were trying to improve their image. I emailed her an account of my dealings with them. I actually had kept the receipt and they took it back and replaced it with a proper one five years later.

Sometimes you get lucky.

http://www.jeffreyglasser.com/

If buying privately look at condition.

If the screwheads aren't mangled (and they all match), chances are anyone who opened it up knew what they were doing.

If it's a bit grubby (including the screws) then it has evidently been used but not serviced. It probably needs some maintenance but on the plus side you know it hasn't been bodged. So long as it doesn't have any major impact damage it's worth a go.

 

[blockend]

Anything "classic", whether it be furniture, cars, cameras or whatever, carries the potential for chancers to pass off old junk as the real thing. It's reasonable to assume any Leica, and especially Barnacks, require a full service to make them work as originally intended, and that cost should be factored in the price.