A part of Soviet Union - FED-50 USSR RARE 35mm rangefinder film camera. Russian

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FED - 50 Automatic Camera Serial number: 787145; Focus range 1meter to infin.; Has frame counter; "CCCP" High Quality stamp; Automatic; Excellent working and cosmetic condition; Fully Serviced, Tested and cleaned. Lens Industar-81; 2.8/38. About FED The FED is a Soviet rangefinder camera, mass produced from 1934 until around 1990, and also the name of the factory that made it. FED is indirectly named after Felix Edmundovich Dzerzhinsky, founder of the Cheka (KGB). It was his name that was given to the labour commune at Kharkiv (Ukraine) whose manager, Anton Makarenko, encouraged a workshop education for indigent children and who decided to copy the Leica in 1932. Large-scale production began in 1934, and in the same year the factory was put under NKVD control and Makarenko was fired. Production continued until 1941, when German forces destroyed the factory, and resumed in 1946. Until 1955, the factory made a huge number of cameras that resemble the Leica rather closely (and are often altered, given "Leica" markings, and sold as Leicas). However, the design is cruder: for example, the rangefinder cam is not fitted with a wheel. From 1955, FED began to innovate, combining the rangefinder with the viewfinder in the FED 2 and all its successors. The FED-3 added slow shutter speeds and on the later version FED-3 (b) the film read more