Green Zorki 1B ?

The story goes that in 1996 friend of my friend went to Moscow to see the city and got himself a souvenir – old Zorki camera.
He find recently that I collecting Russian cameras and give it to me as a good will gesture. It appears to be nice working Zorkiy-Zorki type-B camera with s/n 31869, built in 1950?. Desirable, but far from rare camera.
Overtime shiny black paint on the camera’s body (residue from Arbat make over) start to pill off, and under it begging to appear green vulcanite, very much like on green FED2. I never hear about true green Zorki. So can anyone tell me what is going on? I wish I can tell that I discovered green Zorki, but on this stage it hard to tell if this vulcanite is really green or it discolored overtime becoming look-like green. You can see the contrast between pilled black paint and original vulcanite on the pictures.

http://www.ussrphoto.com/UserContent/p 315.jpg

http://www.ussrphoto.com/UserContent/p 312.jpg

I have seen this before on well worn vulcanite on FED-1 and FED-2 cameras. I think it must be the natural color of the substance, without black coloring, or how it gets with wear. The green color is rarely evenly distributed.

Regards, Bill

Hello Okynek,
I have never seen green Zorkis: this colour is probably due to wear.
1933 Leicas turn to brown in the same conditions...
Three of my Fed 1b are green, but it's rather a dark olive chemically obtained, I think.

Amitiés. Jacques.

Okynek,

My Zorki-1b #41553 has the same body colour ...


Regards,
Aidas

Thank you guys for responses!
I was expecting that time and ware taking it tall, plus chemicals of later paint possibly react with old vulcanite make it pale green or olive.
So most likely no green Zorki yet :(
What I like to do is to take old paint off completely.
I thinking to use ultrasonic bath, (the devise for cleaning jewelry). They sell at Walmart for around $30.
I wonder if anyone used such method (widely accepted in auto industry) to clean camera parts?
Can such cleaning destroy vulcanite before it destroyed paint? What chemicals should I use? As I discovered old paint came off using alcohol. In auto industry they use detergents. I’m not sure what used for jewelry.
Any other ways how to get rid of old paint?

You could try non-acetone nail polish remover. I've removed some paints with it, although not on vulcanite, apply to small area first to test..

Vlad

Thanks Vlad! I'll try it.