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The flea market Leica M3.

RAY WILSON

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Boyertown, Pennsylvania
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$4 from a flea market. Four months with YYE. It's a '54 double stroke. I was worried the camera was beyond repair. Nope! Back smooth as butter. Seized shutter brake, and recement rangefinder prism. Joy.



 
Wow! That's a keeper!
 
Very nice restoration! An even better story with that price tag!!
 
$500? And the rest, as the Brits would say. $680. I was over the moon when Youxin said "...your camera is done". I figured I'd hear "....beyond economical repair...".

Huss said:
Not really. Eli wants a fully functioning M for $10. Pretty sure that it cost about $500 to get this one back on the road.
Click to expand...
 
Are you working on getting me to have Leica envy?
 
RAY WILSON said:
$500? And the rest, as the Brits would say. $680. I was over the moon when Youxin said "...your camera is done". I figured I'd hear "....beyond economical repair...".
Click to expand...

The thing I really like about this story is the restoration, the 'recycling' and making something good again. As opposed to so much junk nowadays which just becomes trash.
$680 for a now functionally perfect M3 is still a really good deal!
 
Huss said:
Not really. Eli wants a fully functioning M for $10. Pretty sure that it cost about $500 to get this one back on the road.
Click to expand...

Had Eli purchased this very camera, paid for the repair and sold it, he could have acquired an M1 for free. He'd even have enough money left to acquire a Canon P so that he wouldn't even have to put wear on the Leica. A missed opportunity, if you ask me.
 
What a great find... was my first thought.

But then I started contemplating... If I had bought this camera for 4€, and I sure would have done so, my first great endeavour would be to get it working again. Never worked on a shutter brake. In case of having succeeded with the repair, I then would have to get a lens for it. With apt cam... Matching in price or so that camera. Something as rare here as that 4€ Leica in first place. Thus spending a 3-digit sum to get the camera actually working... Thus likely one piece more on a hoarder's heap...

Well, I could instead then sell it for 10$ to Eli.... though he likely would expect the lens too...
 

I suppose you could always post a classified ad along the lines of "Wanted: $10 Leica restoration." Probably wouldn't find any takers, but it would be good entertainment.
 
I guess those amongst us with a lot of stuff at home, of the kind of "someday I sure shall need it", or "it is a bargain", will get my point.
 

If you kept the camera, you would be keeping it from the hoarders.
 
Fantastic find! Thanks for sharing.
My best flea-market find is this $5 Century.
 
A few years later I got a lens for the Century for 75 cents at a garage sale. High resolution doublet landscape lens with absolutely no separation.
 
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