Do fake M-1s exist?

If you have read my site before, I had a post about how to check whether an M-1 is genuine.

Most probably, those are the points that you should refer to and should keep you fine when looking for an M-1.

However, these days I kept browsing websites and saw quite a number of M-1s with phillips star screws on the mount.

I then further surfed the net and noticed something...

If you remember what I showed in the M-1 post, you might think this is an M-1.

This is actually a black paint OM1, a non MD OM1.

You can see the four tiny screws around the film curtain and the smaller film pressure plate.

This is really intriguing. The reason why I spotted this was that I saw a black OM1 with this smaller pressure plate.

After some research, I found that actually some very very early OM1 bodies have these features similar to an M-1.

Therefore, creating a fake M-1 is indeed possible. Some cunning sellers may take advantage of this and do the magic trick.

The only reliable way to check authenticity is to open up the top plate and look at the circuit, which is impossible in almost all the purchases. Therefore, it is better to get it from reputable sources and get one which matches ALL the features. Perhaps, it is still better to avoid those with star screws on the mount.

It is really great to have learnt about this piece of information, I guess Olympus won't be able to tell me whether they made some M-1s with star screws or not.

Cheers,

Wilfred