black paint
4 Jul 2018
Black Paint #2 - Strap lugs
Let us now talk about strap lugs of black paint cameras.

Leica M3 and M2 are considered to be full black paint cameras in general with almost all parts in black paint (of course early batch of buddha ear M3 is probably the authentic full black paint camera, with serial number starting from 959, or all earlier black batches - I will cover that later). Therefore, M3 and M2's strap lug are black paint on brass, and when the paint comes off (brassing), it will show a golden brass colour underneath.

Black Paint M4 is considered to be semi black paint camera.  While its body and many knobs are black paint, there are also many black chrome parts such as shutter speed dial and film rewind knob (not the small center handle).  There are also some silver chrome parts such as the plate under the shutter release button.  The strap lug of over 99% of M4 black paint should be silver in colour, unless they are the ultra rare early full black paint M4.   However, they are so rare that not many people know their existence.   They are not even shown in most Leica collector books and I believe they are rarer than buddha ear BLACK PAINT M3).
Special Black Paint variations will be covered in future articles.
Leica started to use strap lug from Leica III and the old Screw Mount BLACK PAINT Leica III do not have black paint strap lug like M2 and M4.  The configuration is more like M4, but the strap lugs are mainly in nickel finish other than late Leica III closer to serial #300 000 which have chrome fittings on black paint cameras.
But the extremely collectable military BLACK PAINT IIIf and IIIG have black paint strap lug that brass.
Reissued models such as MP3, M3J have buddha ear black paint strap lug.
For those black paint M6s, it depends on which special edition you are after.  Some come with black paint strap lug and some do not.  I will not cover it in detail here as black plaint M6s are seldom fake or repainted.
credit to Edison Sam
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