what's the right name? Kiev IIa or 2a ?

[spiderfrank]

Hi guys, just a little question: speaking about Kievs, the "four" are always written as 4 (4, 4a, 4m... ), but the "two" and "three" are written sometime as 2, 3, and sometime as II, III ...
(and there isn't the name written on the camera)

This is just to know if I have a Kiev IIa or a Kiev 2a ;-)

[Santafecino]

I guess we'd have to look at the instruction book that came with them.

[nzeeman]

according to these manual covers it was simple "kiev"
http://cccp.webstar.nl/manuals.htm

[Ducky]

I have a Kiev IVam??. . . .naagh

[ZorkiKat]

Not sure about the earlier or later models, but Kiev 4 and 4a were labelled with "4" and not "IV". That is how it was written in a Kiev instruction booklet for the 4/4a.

Maizenberg used hindu-arabic numbers for the models 2 and 3 as well.

It also appears that Roman numbers were never used in model IDs with any Soviet made camera - logos in FED, Zorki, Zenit, Chajka, Lubitel, etc bore hindu-arabic numbers. I believe that Roman numerals in Russian context are read as ordinal- "2" is dva/two and "II" would be vtoroy/second. Kiev-2 is Kiev model 2 (though there wasn't a model 1?), but written as Kiev II, it would be Kiev the second, :)

[spiderfrank]

Ok, I'm convinced, I have a "Kiev 2a" ! Thank you all, guys

Also here in Italy II is for "second" and 2 is for "two", perhaps the first models were named II and III because clones of the Contax II and III, but when they started to "evolve" the camera, the adopted the traditional sistem of arabic numbers