Latest Fed I(G)

Dralowid · 10-25-2012

As a matter of interest has anyone got a very late Fed I(G) with a very late serial number?

This would be the version with engraving of FED only on the top and the serial number on the back of the body.

The newest I have is 712039. I kind of get the feeling that I have seen one in the 800,000s but maybe I'm mistaken???

Who knows...

Michael

wolves3012 · 10-26-2012

Mine's 640XXX so not as late as yours. The film guide rails on them are very shallow, is yours prone to the film running "off" and leaving sprocket holes in the gate? Mine is, unfortunately.

Dralowid · 10-26-2012

Yes, it seems that the aluminium shutter case casting changes as time went by. I couldn't understand why mine was all over the place until I noticed it rattling and realised that the pressure plate springs were missing...a typical symptom of the kitchen table and bread knife repair these things suffered in an earlier age...(I'm avoiding joining in the Fed/Leica ding dong that is shaping up on another thread).

The only sweeping generalisation I'd make about older FSU cameras is 'late is bad and early is good'!

ZorkiKat · 12-18-2012

I don't know if anyone has noticed that these FED-1 have different shutter crates than the earlier ones? I have several of these (sn starting from 59..... to about 69....) and their shutter crates are cast single pieces. The earlier FED-1 used stamped crates made of separate plates. The film tracks are indeed shallow- in some cases, almost none. All that I've seen have been filed at some point, and the filing is not limited to the film tracks, but extend up to the side walls of the crates. In one of my FED which belong to this series, the crate is so tight inside that film won't run easily.

I suspect that the crates are similar to the ones used for the later Zorki. FED may have been supplied with Zorki crates during the last runs of the FED-1. The Zorki bodies where the cast crates went were modified to accommodate the cast crates. The FED chassis appear to be the same as the earlier ones- there was no appreciable change during the FED's production run- the crates remain the same oblong bodies shaped from tubes. Thus the cast crates had to be filed or altered by hand to make them fit into the FED bodies.