Knowing the year by the serial number...

chef_IBK

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Hi I just got my 2nd Hassy 500 body and I have typed in hasselbladhistorical site the serial number and it was made in 1970 . Now the production of 500c ended in 1970 an started the production of the 500c/m too in the same year. It has a wheel cranker.. So I dunno if is a 500c or a 500c/m...
 

Q.G.

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It says what it is on the camera...


Mind you, they didn't change the name until some (short) time after they changed the camera.
So there indeed are 500 C cameras that are the same as 500 C/M cameras, except for what it says on the camera.
Look at the focussing screen. Are there two clips left and right, holding it in place? If so, it's a 500 C/M (though if it also says 500 C on the camera, it's not a 500 C/M . ).

The crank/knob itself is not a good guide. They are user-changeable, and you can put the a later style crank on an old camera, and vice versa, and old knob on a newer camera.
 

Paul Goutiere

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Secret code...known only to a few. But very, very secret.

VHPICTURES
1234567890

A camera made in 1970 would have "US" as the beginning of the serial number. Get it??

Don't tell anyone.
 

Paul Goutiere

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chef_IBK said:
Yeah...I got my first 500c like 5 month ago and now I got myself another 500 c with a standard 80mm T* and I just got a 150mm sonnar 1:4
Is just always I want more and more....lol
Click to expand...

Not a bad camera to want. I think I want a 500CM and a 40mm lens now as well.

Why the 500C and not the 500CM?
 
OP
OP

chef_IBK

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cuz I had it preatty cheap and the 2nd one too.... I entered the store to buy me a lens and I came out with a body and a back for the same price...!!!! My aim is the 30mm distagon but way too expensive for me now so I think I will go next for a 40mm chrome, that is kinda cheaper.....
 

Q.G.

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Good luck finding a 'chrome' 40 mm!
They were all black from the moment they went into production.

(Mind you: not being 'chrome' is not a sign that they are all multicoated. Unless it says "T*" on the lens, it is not.)
 

Q.G.

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Paul Goutiere said:
What time would it be if you didn't know what time it was?
Click to expand...

How long would a bit of string be, if you didn't know how long it is?

I have been itching many times to say this: your sig is about the most wrong, meaningless thing i have ever heard said about time.
 

mike c

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Q.G.,I have a chrome 250mm hassie lens that has t* on it,the benzal .Would it be safe to assume it is a t*.
Mike
 

Paul Goutiere

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Q.G. said:
How long would a bit of string be, if you didn't know how long it is?

I have been itching many times to say this: your sig is about the most wrong, meaningless thing i have ever heard said about time.
Click to expand...

Then you really won't like this:

"Einstein's belief in an undivided solid reality was clear to him, so much so that he completely rejected the separation we experience as the moment of now. He believed there is no true division between past and future, there is rather a single existence. His most descriptive testimony to this faith came when his lifelong friend Besso died. Einstein wrote a letter to Besso's family, saying that although Besso had preceded him in death it was of no consequence, "...for us physicists believe the separation between past, present, and future is only an illusion, although a convincing one."

http://www.everythingforever.com/einstein.htm

I dunno, maybe Einstein was wrong, or you should read more.
 

mikebarger

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I wonder how many of the 500c were made that have the removable screens. It must have been a lot as I have two of them here in southern Missouri. Anybody have any ideas?? Just curious.

Mike
 

Paul Goutiere

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mikebarger said:
I wonder how many of the 500c were made that have the removable screens. It must have been a lot as I have two of them here in southern Missouri. Anybody have any ideas?? Just curious.

Mike
Click to expand...
I can't say much about how many, but a friend of mine had such a camera as well as the 500cm, which I bought. I wonder if a few were modified or mislabeled CMs.

A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.
 

mikebarger

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When I bought my two C's were selling at a sharp discount to CM's, more so than today. So it worked out pretty good for me, I bought them and sent them straight to David Odess. After CLA I had less in them than CM's were selling on Ebay, by a fair bit.

I often wondered if there had been a retro fit on C's and that's why there are so many of the C's with CM features.

Mike
 

Paul Goutiere

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Hi Mike,

I may get a 500CM, next year as a spare body. My 501CM is a nice camera but I like the advance indicator on the body of the 500CM. Since I will never use a telephoto longer than 150mm, the "gliding mirror sytem" becomes redundant.
David Odess must be pretty good with Hasselblads. Will he work on the older lenses and shutters?
 

mikebarger

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Yes he will. I try to buy at a low enough price off ebay that I can send it to David and not have more than some stuff sells for without a the CLA. All of my lens are the C series, most of my backs are the old peep hole type, my bodies are ashamed to say I have two C's, a CM and a EL/M. David works on all of them. At some point I need to thin out the herd as I mostly shot 4x5 now.

Sometimes I can't resist a good deal on Hassy stuff rather I need it or not.

I wouldn't be to concerned about the gliding mirror, I use a 250 a lot and don't have an issue.

Mike
 

Q.G.

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There are indeed quite a few that many 500 C/M's that came out of the factory labelled 500 C.
Rick Nordin, in his most excellent book The Hasselblad System Compendium, recons there are about 15,000.

But what also does happen (and i have seen a few of these) is that parts get mixed when people are trying to assemble cameras out of bits left over from non-working cameras. Two or three wrecks, worth next to nothing, are transformed into a working camera, that will fetch enough to pay for the work and leave a profit.
 

Q.G.

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mike c said:
Q.G.,I have a chrome 250mm hassie lens that has t* on it,the benzal .Would it be safe to assume it is a t*.
Mike
Click to expand...

Not really.
The black barreled C 250 mm lens was introduced some two or three years before T* was introduced on that lens.
What's the serial number?
 

Paul Goutiere

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Q.G. said:
Or maybe you should think for a while about what that thing called "meaning" actually is and/or could be.
Click to expand...
Go for it! Let me know how it turns out. You are the one who's bowels are loosening over this thing.

But now since we are concerned with irrelevance; how can I tell the age of my Hassy lenses by the serial number?
 
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