B B B

February 1947 ad for the “new” Leica IIIc

Toronto. Some decades back, my VP elected to meet with very junior staff. To break the ice and ease the tension of the many level spread between VP and computer staff, he wore a T-Shirt emblazoned with this alliteration: “Bullshit Baffles Brains”. The shirt proved so popular he was asked to wear it when meeting other junior level groups.

Leitz took the same approach with this February, 1947 advertisement in Popular Photography. By 1947, the IIIc introduced in 1940 was decidedly NOT new by any means (in spite of the WW2 intervention), but lens coating by Leitz was relatively new – even if the lenses quoted were not. There was no built-in flash (the IIIf would introduce that in 1950) and a major revolution with the famous M series was about to hit the markets (1954) although design was underway when the war broke out.

Post war, the German camera makers struggled to assemble cameras in any way possible to meet demand and build back market share. In fact, the American government had yet to decide who would represent Leitz in the newly important America.

My thanks to George Dunbar for once again sharing his amazing find with us.

This entry was posted in history and tagged , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.