[Leica] Leica legends

[lrzeitlin at aol.com (lrzeitlin at aol.com)]

        There is an oft repeated Leica legend that the best film Leicas were 
the late model M3s, particularly those with serial numbers over 1000000. I 
don't know if that's true but my old M3, one of the first, worked flawlessly 
for nearly 50 years, shooting a few thousand rolls of film, before I brought 
it to Sherri Krauter for a CLA. Nothing was wrong with it. I just figured 
the camera needed a little tenderness.
        But I heard another one yesterday. My son, an executive with 
Ericsson, travels frequently to Japan. On his last trip I lent him my Leica 
CL (actually a Minolta CL, made in 1974). Seated next to him at the 
conference was an elderly gentleman who had been in charge of production for 
Minolta. He noticed the camera and told my son that the production workers 
took particular care in assembling and testing the CL cameras which bore the 
Minolta nameplate. They were proud of their Japanese made cameras and didn't 
want them to be thought inferior to cameras allegedly made in Germany.
        I can't verify the truth of either of these legends. Can any Lugger 
shed some light on these stories?
        Larry Z