[rollei_list] Re: OT: Contax II

At 05:21 AM 11/6/2008, Carlos Manuel Freaza wrote:

>If Marc is still interested about them, the camera serial number is
>B33268 and the lens CZJ 2188792.-

Of course I am still interested!
Contax II B33268 is part of a batch of 3,000 such cameras, the fifth Contax II batch. I would suspect that this camera was manufactured in late 1937, but that is only a surmise.
1.5/5cm CZJ Sonnar 2188792 is part of a batch of 3,000 such lenses consturction of which ended on 13 DEC 1937.
As others have noted, the Kiev RF cameras are offshoots of the Prewar Contax II and III lines. The lineage runs from Dresden, the location for the factory in which your camera was built, to the revived production line at Jena, whence the "Jena Contax" , and the Jena line was eventually moved to the Arsenal works at Kiev. Some of the early Kiev II cameras were actually assembled at Jena with Cyrillic name-plates, and many of the early lenses also came from Jena, with Cyrillic number-rings.
As a result, parts are easily found for the Contax II, as they are still available NOS from the Arsenal works. (The same situation does not exist for the Postwar Contax IIa and IIIa cameras: with these, parts are becoming scarce as none have been produced in more than forty years.)
I would most strongly urge you to send the camera and lens to Eddie Smoloff in Brookly, NY. Eddie was trained at the factory on Kiev RF repairs and has a full range of parts available. Eddie is inexpensive, very professional, and astonishingly fast. I have only heard good things about Henry Scherer but the delay in getting a camera back from him is simply unacceptable. 

Marc



msmall@xxxxxxxxxxxx
Cha robh bàs fir gun ghràs fir!

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