An oddity, a Leningrad No. 000250 and a fun pic

Hello,

two nice things arrived today, first a very fine Leningrad with serial number 000250 and matching box. I have never seen a Leningrad in a box and to have one with such a low serial seems to be a little rarity:





The second thing is a real oddity, an Iskra which was build to... yes that's the question, what the hell is that black thing on it? It seems that in fron of it something is missing or it could be plugged on something. The "lens" is called MIR 9. It has a shutter with B and 1/30 and a cable release, that's all. Bellows, shutter and lens of the Iskra were removed:





Last but not least a fun pic, some month ago I bought a Zenit E in the package were those puppets too :-)



Ulrich


http://fotos.cconin.de

Ulrich, the Iskra has a medical attachment, I've seen these on various cameras..

Vlad, thanks for the information. I also thought that it could be such an attachment, cameras for medical use are not so rare on eBay.

The Leningrad has an additional painted number on the front. It was from the same seller. Any hints what this number could have been?

http://fotos.cconin.de/temp/len04.jpg

Ulrich

http://fotos.cconin.de

Hi Ulrich,

The attachment on the Iskra is designated "MFN-9" and may be for a microscope. It also has numbers painted on it in the same colors of paint as your beautiful, early Leningrad, so I suspect that since they came from the same seller, he got them from the same source also and that the original source is a scientific lab of some sort.

The numbers are probably lab identification numbers (maybe these numbers were used to "sign-out" the piece of equipment). Probably the "MTK?" abbreviation is the key to which lab or organization used these cameras.

NTK - Nauchno-Tekhnicheskiy Komitet - the Scientific-Technical Committee. So maybe "MTK?" was a Medical Technical organization.

Regards, Bill

I have this attachment as a complete kit for a Zorki-4. It is indeed a microscope adapter. MFN is for Mikro Foto Nasadka, or Micro Photo Attachment

This one is interesting, since it was made for a medium format camera (most medical attachments ae for 35mm)

And the Leningrad is beautiful. Great find.

Yuri

Hello Bill and Yuri,

thanks for the information. I have written an E-Mail to the seller, maybe he knows something more where he got the both cameras from.

And now I know the right name (MFN-9 instead of MIR-9) I have found this website of a seller, it shows the same attachment as mine, but attached to an Iskra 2:

http://rafcamera.com/sca/adapt/mfn-9.htm

If that is a real price that he wants to have this thing was a real bargain for me, I payed 23,- EUR...

Ulrich

http://fotos.cconin.de

Leningrad is my favourite USSR-RF, and mine also has manual & box.

Smena rules

by the way, just for fun and info :

...an early FED 2, engraved "for rent" (?)(please Vlad , confirm translation )
comming from a factory near St Petersburg...

Yes, Alain, it seems that it does say Prokat on it, which meant "rental"... Here's the thing about these Prokat stores.. you could pretty much rent anything from bicycles to TVs, to cameras, etc... those places were very common in USSR, I am surprised we had not run into more of these Prokat cameras or maybe this is the first one that they actually engraved ... thanks for bringing forgotten memories back!

Vlad

I have asked the seller if she knows where the Leningrad and the Iskra came from. She replied me that both came from Litauen (I think it's Latvia) and were used by a university. Her brother bought them there because the storage of the univerity was cleared.

Ulrich

http://fotos.cconin.de

Litauen isn Lithuania, the more southern of these two countries, and Aidas homecountry.

Smena rules

About Leningrads, I always wondered how they were numbered.
This one has # 000250, and should probably be a very early one with such a serial number: perhaps the first year, 1956, by the Princelle... But the lens was built in 1960 (n° 6037206) and it is original, as shown on the passport.
So, I don't understand.

And such other examples can be found for original couples Leningrad/Jupiter 8. In fact, it would even be scarce to find the same prefix date for the two ones!

Thanks if you have lights about this phenomenon, or even gleams!

Amitiйs. Jacques.

quote:

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Originally posted by cedricfan

Litauen isn Lithuania, the more southern of these two countries, and Aidas homecountry.

Smena rules

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damn Two beautiful cameras from my homeland, but not in my collection

Jacques,

I also thought about that. As I know 2 versions of the official Leningrad exists, one with 2 screws on the front and one with 4 screws, which if I remember correctly was built later. Maybe my Leningrad is one of the first of the second version?
I don't know it :-) But I have seen some Leningrads with the number beginning with one or more zeros, also a lot of lenses (e.g. Jupiter 8) and a Zorki 4 which had a 0 as first digit.

Ulrich

http://fotos.cconin.de

Mine is screws version, serial #010404 and lens is 59 so this does not match to yours. Total 76.385 was made, so where is the high serial numbers? In my opinion the production slowed down greatly in the beginning of 60ies?


Smena rules

Juhani,

the Leningrad that I've got from you some years ago has serial 001268 and the lens starts with number 58. That might fit together. So these numering is really odd :-)

Ulrich

http://fotos.cconin.de

Yes, those two would fit in the pattern but your 000250 1960 doesn't. Unless they started a new series in 1960, or used a "three zero" series for non-commercial purposes like university?
Time to start collecting serials and lens-years to wiki!

Smena rules

Juhani,

your Leningrad is in my collection until today. And the very well Start that you sold to me too. It is the best start I've ever had, smooth cocking and quiet releasing of the shutter. Do you remember my "Start-Farm" picture? :-)

Ulrich

http://fotos.cconin.de

Hmpf, I forgot to post the link of the "Start-Farm"...

http://fotos.cconin.de/ussrphoto/startfarm.jpg

:-)

http://fotos.cconin.de

Yes, and good to hear they are still doing well!

Smena rules