Carlos,
Yes, the transitional periods can be explained by the way production of the
TLRs was organised. I have visited the production line on two occasions. In
2003 for the last time. It looked quite old fashioned. Right out of the
Nineteen Fifties or Sixties. The camera bodies were moved on a transport belt
from one work place to the next. There were two rows of desks, one on either
side of the belt. Each row counted around 6 or 8 desks, I do not remember
exactly. Each technician would build a number of parts into the body or
assemble a sub-structure like the finder and put it back on the belt on its
way to the next desk. At end of the two lines was one technician for final
inspection and repairs. Repairs not only on new cameras but also on returned
customer cameras.
The larger parts were probably taken from stock in about the numbers for a
day's production: 20 cameras per day at that time. The small parts like bolts,
rings, springs were on the desks in larger stocks. There is no point in
counting 20 tiny rings every day. So yes, one desk could have had stock of
"new" rings while the neighbouring desk still had plenty of "old" rings. If old
and new parts were interchangeable, there was not even an overwhelming reason
to store them apart to begin with.
A similar thing will have happened with serial numbers. The numbers were
printed on parts that were produced in advance. There is no reason to believe
that they were stored in the proper sequential order. They probably fell out of
a machine in a box and were stored just like that. Every morning a technician
would grab two fists full of numbered name plates and start working. It is very
unlikely that cameras left the production line in exactly the right numerical
order. There was no point in doing so. The point was that cameras could
individually be identified.
Best regards,
Ferdi.
Op 15 aug. 2015, om 17:00 heeft CarlosMFreaza <cmfreaza@xxxxxxxxx> het
volgende geschreven:
2015-08-15 11:43 GMT-03:00 CarlosMFreaza <cmfreaza@xxxxxxxxx>:
...
"... My point is: I noticed the Rolleiflex 2,8 GX made in April 1989, about
one month after your camera, does not have this second chrome ring yet and
then this ring was not added at the beginning of 1989 as the Report IV
refers..".
It could also happen that some batches were provided with the new ring from
the beginning of 1989 and others still manufactured with the original flash
socket. These transitional periods happened more than once during the Rollei
products manufacture.
Carlos
