Finding Parts for a Leica Camera

By chris, April 11, 2012


I was looking for a black screw mount Leica last year, most of the common black screw mount body are Leica II's so inadvertently I ended up getting two with nickel plated fittings.

The first camera body I got was from Youxin Ye, which was originally manufactured in 1935. It was missing the screw-on shutter release collar. The collar or shutter ring is commonly missing on pre-war Leica's since the ring needs to be removed in order to fit in a cable release.

Leica II shutter release

The shutter ring is really tiny so it is really likely to be misplaced once unscrewed. The missing piece is not really a major issue but the shutter button sticking out like the head of a nail is somewhat unsightly, so I'm off to find the part. I thought looking for a replacement would be difficult, due to the nickel plating which will make it uncommon.

Leica II shutter collar/shutter ring nickel plated

Luckily, an eBay seller from Japan offers an ideal brand new replacement. He sells both the chrome version for later screw mounts and nickel plated ring for early Leicas. This is obviously not an original piece but still a decent looking nickel plated copy which fits the camera well.

Leica II nickel plated shutter collar attached

The other black Leica II body was won on eBay. Manufactured in 1932. It was missing the black trim ring for the rangefinder window. Since this exposes the rangefinder adjustment notch, I really need to cover it up to prevent gunk from building up on that area, to protect the rangefinder glass, and to make sure the infinity focus is where it should be. I fear that the rangefinder alignment may get skewed since this area is exposed.

Leica II rangefinder window

Finding a replacement part for this is tricky.  It needs to be in a specific color and I don't think there will be anyone selling this part alone.  Usually there are eBay sellers which sell parts set which may include this piece but I don't want to buy an entire lot just for this.

Off to DAG Camera Parts I go, website of the famous "Don Goldberg", an expert in Leica repair.  Too bad he does not have the part listed on the Leica parts screw mount section, but after inquiring  I was informed that he has the exact item in stock.  Yay!  After receiving the item via post, I was surprised at how pretty the little thing is. Looks like a brand new, old stock of the item or maybe newly fabricated, since there are no signs of use.

Leica II rangefinder window

Now, all the camera body needs are two nickel plated lenses, which I managed to find soon enough. I'll leave the details about that in my future post.

Related articles:



0 comments:

Post a Comment