hi folks

i was very lucky in the divine leica lottery and got a nice serial number: 2733374. nearly symmetrical and a triple 3! with the two 7 that's a full house! who can beat that?

-- stefan randlkofer (geesbert@yahoo.com), December 20, 2001

Answers

Stefan, It looks like your full house beats my pair of 4's...do I have to send you my body since you won?

-- Toby White (tobyw@fdn.com), December 20, 2001.

Stefan!

Well, I guess I can't beat that, but I somehow love my M6 TTL's S/N too, which is 2551001 (at least the last four digits).

-- Michael Kastner (kastner@zedat.fu-berlin.de), December 20, 2001.

Stefan:

About leica numbers, please you can refer to the www.cameraquest.com site.

Somewhere in the page classic camera profile is a list of all M and R serial number and dates of batchs. For instance, I have found there that the R7 I bought in 96 had been produced in 94.

It's fun. Enjoy. X.

-- Xavier d'Alfort (hot_billexf@hotmail.com), December 20, 2001.

For Leica serial numbers, here are two more sites:

"Leica Gallery -- Leica Lens Manufacture Dates"
http://www.le http://www.leicagalle ry.com/lensdates.htm icagallery.com/lensdates.htm

"Question about Leica Serial Numbers" (John Collier's giant homework)
http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=005A 2h
 
 

-- Michael Kastner (kastner@zedat.fu-berlin.de), December 20, 2001.

I have a 35mm f/2.8 Summaron with eyes that has a serial number of 1666632. If you add all of the numbers that are not 6 together, the 1, 3 and 2, you get... gasp!... 6.

-- Al Smith (smith58@msn.com), December 20, 2001.

1995000 on my M6 classic is a pretty sweet hand; 10's over 9's full! But, what I really want to know is what year this body was made; and by any chance was it in 1995?

-- Jack Flesher (jbflesher@msn.com), December 20, 2001.

PS: According to Gandy's site, my number does not exist...

-- Jack Flesher (jbflesher@msn.com), December 20, 2001.

Does anyone have lens production info. for the last 5 years? All the serial # lists seem to end around 1995.

-- Chris Chen (furcafe@cris.com), December 20, 2001.

Chris,

The list at the following link goes to 1999, but like Jack says, his camera is not even on it, so I can't attest to its accuracy.

M serial number list up to 1999

-- Al Smith (smith58@msn.com), December 20, 2001.

My God Al; I hava a summaron 35 with eyes too, and serial #´s 1666984, and one of my M3 is the 1058585 my 21/3.4 is the 2035559, I´m mad about that too.

-- r watson (al1231234@hotmail.com), December 20, 2001.

Remember dudes, the number 4 is considered unlucky by our Chinese friends. That is why all of the M's with serial numbers that have a 4 in them are sold to us silly Americans by the Honk Kong dealers!

-- Steve Hoffman (shoffman2@socal.rr.con), December 20, 2001.

Al:

Thanks, but the serial # lists for *lenses* that I've seen aren't as up to date. I have an M2 & M3, so I don't care about the production dates for those new-fangled M6s! ; )

-- Chris Chen (furcafe@cris.com), December 20, 2001.

Steve is right about the Chinese (mainly the Cantonese in Hong Kong) superstition for numbers.

o is neutral

1 is good (rhymes with the Cantonese character for "sure")

2 is good ("easy")

3 is good ("alive" in both the physical and financial sense)

4 is bad ("die!")

5 is bad ("not"--as in "52" = "not easy")

6 is good ("wealth")

7 is good ("get what you want"--as in "17" = "sure to get what you want)

8 is extremely good ("prosper", which is why the EOS 5000 is sold in the Far East as the EOS 888)

9 is good ("longlasting" or "long life")

My M4-P is numbered 1622513, which makes it a pretty good talisman, I suppose! ;-)

-- Hoyin Lee (leehoyin@hutchcity.com), December 20, 2001.

Thank you Mr. Lee. That was quite interesting.

I had been noticing that the Far East dealers were selling their special Black and Green Paint M6's on Ebay all with numbers like 4 on them.

My wife (who used to work for a Chinese based company) told me that they can't unload them anywhere but to non-Chinese customers.

A little tidbit of Leica trivia, I guess.

-- Steve Hoffman (shoffman2@socal.rr.con), December 20, 2001.

Jack: No. 1995001 was assigned in Nov. 1993 per the Gandy list - which should date yours pretty close - probably 1995000 was a number intended to mark the end of an R6 or R7 run.

Sure you don't have a mirror in there somewhere? ?8^)X

-- Andy Piper (apidens@denver.infi.net), December 20, 2001.

Dang Andy, I better run out and check!

;-)

-- Jack Flesher (jbflesher@msn.com), December 20, 2001.