A few days ago I acquired a Kodak Retina No. 141, circa 1937-39. It was dirty, the shutter was stuck open, the film advance was misbehaving, and the lens was quite hazy. So, I spent a couple afternoons tearing it down to its components (I left the bellows struts and bellows in place, as they needed only superficial cleaning), completely disassembled and cleaned the shutter, took apart the lens cells and cleaned the surfaces, redyed the leather, etc., and now it looks (and works!) almost as good as the day it left Stuttgart. (There was some flaking of the chrome on the advance and rewind knobs, which is not uncommon: nothing I could do about that)
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A little gem! Love those early Retinas! Very nice restoration.
Yeah.....I build these. That’s serial number 430.
A Contax IIa in really lovely condition! (Look upon my works, ye Leica fan boys, and despair!) Very few indications of use, save for a few little scratches around the tripod socket. And a Zeiss Opton f1.5 to go with it. Really clean, a few wear marks, but the Zeiss lens cap is somewhat scarred! Oh, the horror!...... I also scored a Kiev case which fits the Contax perfectly. While it is in excellent condition, its workmanship can't compare to the Contax, and the hood is permanently attached with a rivet. Somewhere I remember seeing how to replace the rivet with a snap, to allow carrying the Contax for ready use. Since I have the Voigtlander 21mm f4 and 35mm f2.5 I bought for my Nikon S2 I'm ready for some street shooting!
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