FED-ZORKI 1949 - Zorki 2 - FED S - FED 1A - TSVVS

Hi all

Im looking for a nice FED-ZORKI 1949, a Zorki-2, and other rare/early Leica-type Russian copies..

Many thanks for your help

Best regards
Johan

Hi Johan,
very nice Zorki-2 was sold yesterday on eBay for 82,- Euro. Check regularly on Ebay, it is the best way.

Regards, Alexander

thanks Alexander,

I was following the zorki, but was too late home from work to bid :(

best regards
Johan

The good thing about Zorki-2 is, less fakes are on the market, it's not worth to fake one now because the price is so much down from years ago and I don't think this will change soon.
Fed-Zorkis on the other hand are much more expensive and some fakes are around, you can read much about them here.
The most successful Zorki is the Zorki-1 I think, maybe it's because it really looks so similar to a Leica-II. I think every Leica-collector needs to have one and later ones are not expensive.
And then there are the Feds which seem to be more popular now than Zorki's.

Thanks Lenny

I didn't realized that prices went down so much over the years.

Hello Johan

No, the prices of the Zorki 2 (not Zorki 2C!) don't gone down in the last ten years. 100 to 200$ was realistic 10 years ago, today you will find them for 200 to 400$ on eBay.


Hello Lenny

For the fakes you're absolutly right. But it's not a question of prices only, but it's very simple to change engravements, on the other hand I think it is *very* complicated to add a self-timer to a normal Zorki 1.

Why do think FEDs become more popular than Zorkis? Preware FEDs were always very popular, the FED 1a are sold some times for prices like the FED-KMZs (max. 100 units, only a handfull known today). The quality of later FEDs were not so good as Zorkis and especially Zorki export models (so called "Zorki-Zorki"). FED 1b are some sort to be compaired with FED-Zorkis for the prices I think.

Best wishes - Guido

quote:

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Originally posted by Guido

Hello Johan
No, the prices of the Zorki 2 (not Zorki 2C!) don't gone down in the last ten years. 100 to 200$ was realistic 10 years ago, today you will find them for 200 to 400$ on eBay.

Hello Lenny
For the fakes you're absolutly right. But it's not a question of prices only, but it's very simple to change engravements, on the other hand I think it is *very* complicated to add a self-timer to a normal Zorki 1.

Why do think FEDs become more popular than Zorkis? Preware FEDs were always very popular, the FED 1a are sold some times for prices like the FED-KMZs (max. 100 units, only a handfull known today). The quality of later FEDs were not so good as Zorkis and especially Zorki export models (so called "Zorki-Zorki"). FED 1b are some sort to be compaired with FED-Zorkis for the prices I think.

Best wishes - Guido

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Hello Guido,

last month were two Zorki-2 on ebay, for less than 90Euro each plus shipping and today was another 2 even for only 66USD. Sure there are some offered for much more, up to 400USD, but nobody wants to pay so much. And of course the price depends on the condition of the cam, but that doesn't mean that the expensive ones are better.

When I open this website it's easy to see what happened recently here and there were months when only Feds were added to the database, so popular are they, Zorkis are mentioned much less. I'm sure most collectors here are into Feds. And the historical roots that many Ukrainians worked at Leica during WWII is special too. Zorki doesn't have this history.

Hello Lenny

I think you use an other eBay than me ... maybe you could give me some auction numbers of such cheap Zorki 2?

quote:

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Originally posted by Lenny

When I open this website it's easy to see what happened recently here and there were months when only Feds were added to the database, so popular are they, Zorkis are mentioned much less. I'm sure most collectors here are into Feds. And the historical roots that many Ukrainians worked at Leica during WWII is special too. Zorki doesn't have this history.

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Do you measure the popularity of a camera by the changes in the wiki? Well I would think this could be a sign of the quality of the entries that had to be corrected. Or maybe of the fact that the history of the FED isn't as well docomented as the history of the Zorkis.

I'm not one of the "most collectors" you talking about but I don't know one collector that has no Zorki in his collection. Okay, maybe one. But okay I don't know as much as you maybe.

And for the ukrainian workers working for Leitz, could you give me more details, references, sources?

Thank you in advance.

Best wishes - Guido

quote:

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Originally posted by Guido


Hello Lenny

I think you use an other eBay than me ... maybe you could give me some auction numbers of such cheap Zorki 2?

quote:

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Originally posted by Lenny

When I open this website it's easy to see what happened recently here and there were months when only Feds were added to the database, so popular are they, Zorkis are mentioned much less. I'm sure most collectors here are into Feds. And the historical roots that many Ukrainians worked at Leica during WWII is special too. Zorki doesn't have this history.

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Do you measure the popularity of a camera by the changes in the wiki? Well I would think this could be a sign of the quality of the entries that had to be corrected. Or maybe of the fact that the history of the FED isn't as well docomented as the history of the Zorkis.

I'm not one of the "most collectors" you talking about but I don't know one collector that has no Zorki in his collection. Okay, maybe one. But okay I don't know as much as you maybe.

And for the ukrainian workers working for Leitz, could you give me more details, references, sources?

Thank you in advance.

Best wishes - Guido

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Hello Guido,

here are the latest Zorki-2 sold on ebay
381010092463 / 121470710437 / 361096360750

The Ukrainians at Leica can be read about here, the "Leica Freedom Train", worth to read all to understand the intentions they had.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leica_Freedom_Train

Maybe we should make a poll here and ask the collectors which brand they are more interested in, Fed or Zorki.

Hello Lenny

Thanks for the auction numbers. Very interesting and at least one of them should be in my search result on eBay ... One is listed as a 2C and an other one was not available in Switzerland. I don't fully understand the eBay search engine!

Also thanks for the link. I knew parts of the this history but the story with the "700 to 800 Ukrainian slave laborers" I missed. Do you know if this plant was in Germany or in the Ukraine? And were this workers from FED?

For the poll ... what a funny idea! ;-)

Best wishes - Guido

Personally, I like both the Feds (series 1 and 2) and Zorki (series 1, 2, and 3)

From a collection point of view, I would like to have the camera's representing the different types/evolution/historical changes over the years. Many variations of course in the early Feds (same camera, different markings, exciting early period, impact of the war, low numbers, fed-zorki , etc..), and many variations in Zorki's (with C versions, festival, export, etc..). So its very exciting.

I just have a small collection. In a small cabinet (table size), I layed out the shapes of all the versions I'm looking for, so I can simply 'fill in the gaps', when a new camera joins its friends :)

best wishes
Johan

quote:

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Originally posted by Guido


Hello Lenny

Thanks for the auction numbers. Very interesting and at least one of them should be in my search result on eBay ... One is listed as a 2C and an other one was not available in Switzerland. I don't fully understand the eBay search engine!

Also thanks for the link. I knew parts of the this history but the story with the "700 to 800 Ukrainian slave laborers" I missed. Do you know if this plant was in Germany or in the Ukraine? And were this workers from FED?

For the poll ... what a funny idea! ;-)

Best wishes - Guido

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Hello Guido,

I think these 700 Ukrainian women were all FED-employees, the men were at war. These women might have worked in the plant in Germany. I can't imagine that Elsie Kuehn-Leitz would have traveled to Ukraine during war time and also the FED-factory could be destroyed. Also FED itself relocated their plant to Berdsk and other places to produce for the war. The Leitz company wanted to produce their own products during war time and not FED-products, so the FED-plant with a different machinery wasn't really needed, but the skilled workers were needed and useful.

Sad that there was not more mentioned about these Ukrainian slave workers, would be interesting to know more about it. Maybe some Leica-collectors know more about the war history. I think Leica itself won't give more information about this bad part of their history.

I think all these 700 Ukrainian women lernt how Leica produced their products and that could have been very helpful for FED after the war and not only FED, KMZ also.

quote:

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Originally posted by JS1

Personally, I like both the Feds (series 1 and 2) and Zorki (series 1, 2, and 3)

From a collection point of view, I would like to have the camera's representing the different types/evolution/historical changes over the years. Many variations of course in the early Feds (same camera, different markings, exciting early period, impact of the war, low numbers, fed-zorki , etc..), and many variations in Zorki's (with C versions, festival, export, etc..). So its very exciting.

I just have a small collection. In a small cabinet (table size), I layed out the shapes of all the versions I'm looking for, so I can simply 'fill in the gaps', when a new camera joins its friends :)

best wishes
Johan

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That's so great Johan, I love it.
I also like Fed-2 (the early ones till #400000 and Zorki-2C. There are really many variations and yes, it's exciting.

quote:

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Originally posted by Guido



For the poll ... what a funny idea! ;-)

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Hi Guido,

is there a poll function here? Let's make a poll, every member has only one vote for his main collectable target. I think this would be really interesting.

Hello Lenny

Okay, in the german Wikipedia [1] you may find a note on 643 "Ostarbeiter" with a link to an other interesting text from Karsten Porezag about this Freedom Train and the slave laborers, in german too. I read this as the plant in question was the one in Wetzlar, Germany. I didn't find any information about a link to FED in this context.

For the poll ... it wasn't a joke?

Best wishes - Guido


[1] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leitz_%28Optik%29
[2] http://www.porezag.de/buecher/ernstleitz/einleitung.htm

Ok Guido,
so there are two different sources,
1. 700-800 Ukrainian women and
2. 643 slave workers mostly from Ukraine.

I think it's interesting that not all slave workers were chosen from France and instead they chose workers from far away Ukraine. It seems they did that on "purpose". I "assume" those Ukrainians were all former FED-employees. Not every FED-employee went to Berdsk which is Novosibirsk, far away and very cold. On the other hand I wonder how many employees FED had before the war, FED built 30-thousand cams per year before the war.