So in the thread about A series cameras there was a lot of discussion of black finish vs chrome finish and what if anything that signifies. I thought it might be interesting to relate a little anecdote.
In my collection I have a Mamiya 1000 DTL that I bought cheaply sight unseen thinking it was a worn example with factory black finish. No. Someone took the top and bottom plate and rewind crank, self-timer lever and battery cover off the body and spray painted them with dark grey/off-black primer. Where this flaked off they painted it with a much less resilient black paint that comes off almost at a touch. They also seem to have modified it so that the meter is always on even when the stop down lever is not pressed in (by crimping the battery contact band that normally gets pressed to the battery by an extension of the stop down mechanism). I bet they did that to make it more convenient to use preset lenses. They seem to have chipped the top of the pentaprism when reinstalling the top deck.
Interesting, no? They wanted a black finish badly enough to do it themselves and in fact botch it themselves.
Edit: they also soldered on the metal body of a hot shoe from another camera and built it up with epoxy into a decent cold shoe... the only problem is they didn't space it from the angled top back surface of the prism housing and so it's at an angle unlike virtually every cold and hot shoe in existence.
In my collection I have a Mamiya 1000 DTL that I bought cheaply sight unseen thinking it was a worn example with factory black finish. No. Someone took the top and bottom plate and rewind crank, self-timer lever and battery cover off the body and spray painted them with dark grey/off-black primer. Where this flaked off they painted it with a much less resilient black paint that comes off almost at a touch. They also seem to have modified it so that the meter is always on even when the stop down lever is not pressed in (by crimping the battery contact band that normally gets pressed to the battery by an extension of the stop down mechanism). I bet they did that to make it more convenient to use preset lenses. They seem to have chipped the top of the pentaprism when reinstalling the top deck.
Interesting, no? They wanted a black finish badly enough to do it themselves and in fact botch it themselves.
Edit: they also soldered on the metal body of a hot shoe from another camera and built it up with epoxy into a decent cold shoe... the only problem is they didn't space it from the angled top back surface of the prism housing and so it's at an angle unlike virtually every cold and hot shoe in existence.