Kiev 303 Colors

07/14/2008 00:31

Anyone ever gazed upon a Blue, White or Grey 303 that are mentioned in Princelle? Haven't seen one for sale ever and wondering whether anyone ever did. Are those THAT rare?

07/14/2008 03:49

Hi Vlad,

I have never personally seen a Kiev 303 in those bright colours, but as I understand there were plenty for sale in the US during the mid to late nineties.
The reason I say this is because I used collect these small Kiev's for a friend of mine who specialises in small format cameras.
I found all variants for him, Kiev 30, 30m, Kiev/Vega, Vega-2, etc, but I could never find the Kiev 303. In fact I must have bought a total of around forty or fifty of these cameras,(The majority of which I still have) but there was not one 303 amongst them. I did eventually find one Kiev 303 in Uzbekistan,(much later) but it was black and as I remember the quality of finish was obviously quite inferior to all the other Kiev 30 variants.
I think the 303 was made primarily for export, At the time a mutual friend of ours, (also a Soviet camera collector) went to the US and brought a coloured Kiev 303 back for our small format collector friend so as to complete his "set" of Kiev 30 variants.
As I remember this little Kiev was quite expensive at the time, I think around seventy dollars or there abouts. This was at a time when I was buying these cameras in Uzbekistan for a fraction of that price.
If you like I will contact my friend and find out exactly where he bought the camera, and what the colour was.
So to answer your question, no I don't thing these cameras are THAT rare, but I think you need to look in the right place to find one, ie outside of the FSU.
Best wishes, Jim

07/14/2008 06:25

Hi Vlad,

I have green, red, and black versions of Kiev 303, but I think these are more common colours.

Kind Regards,

Zhang

07/14/2008 09:55

Jim,

I see 303's for sale quite a bit but not in these colors.

Zhang, I do also have those 3 as well they are pretty common, but had been unsuccessful in finding the other 3...

Vlad

07/14/2008 10:28

Vlad,

the same with me - I have never met Kiev-303 in other colours than black, green and red ... only domestic and export versions of them ...

Best Regards,
Aidas

07/14/2008 15:18

You know you can always buy a can of Krylon spray paint.

Gray, White, and Blue with just a shpritz !!

Steve

07/14/2008 16:37

And probably make a killing on eBay too

.. shhh... the watchers are reading

07/14/2008 22:56

Hi All,

Further to my earlier post, I checked with my friend as to what colour Kiev 303 he brought back to England from the US, and it was red, (so no luck with the other colours). We need to keep on searching!
Another friend bought an Agat-18K in the US at about the same time, (late 1990's) and he paid $65 for this little plastic camera, (ouch).
At that time I could probably buy 2 of these cheap little cameras in the FSU for less than one dollar. Food for thought!

Cheers, Jim

10/02/2012 08:46

It has been 4 years and I want to resurrect this thread. I again ran into the JLP's description of this cameras in Blue and White, to this day did anyone encounter one possibly? This is another case of my Flying Dutchman

Cheers,
Vlad