Black paint M-1 - The holy grail

The holy grail. I have been looking for one of these for so many years. Finally it showed up but I DIDN'T GET IT/WIN IT, partly due to the price and more importantly because there are things that I don't feel comfortable about.

I shall try to briefly explain that.

First of all, the black paint looks a bit too perfect to me. According to the scarce information available online, the black paint model was given to selected professional photographers or personnel closely related to Olympus, this was the same practice as those gold OM1Ns or OM2Ns. (Years ago there was one Gold OM1N for sale. I doubted, didn't place a bid and I regret still).

This is the one.

The actual production number of a black paint M-1 was unknown, rumoured to be 25 or one of the sources claimed 50 units. From what I can gather, the real ones don't look this minty. Of course, it is definitely possible that the owner pampered it like how I cherish my M-1s and would be mad even to leave a tiny scratch on them. What I think is, an OM1N Gold with that unique gold finish and special leatherette is hard to redo but a black repaint can be easily done by modern camera shops.

From the photos you can see it looks flawless on the top plate.

It shows a slightly yellowing of the white fonts but I can't tell if it's because of the lighting. Also notice how minty the film rewind knob is.

Not even a scratch around the edges as well.

What's more, the screws on the lens mount aren't the CORRECT ones. Of course, Olympus might have changed it as the black one was considered to be a prototype.

The screws around the film chamber are missing and the film pressure plate isn't correct.

The camera is stuck and the camera manual is a reprinted version.

To be honest, I made a pretty UNREALISTIC bid but then the winner placed an even higher bid on it, WAY HIGHER I mean!

Therefore, I could only witness it go. There are too many uncertainties that don't make me feel confident in putting a higher bid.

I don't exactly know whether I can own one eventually. However, this is one unusual encounter I can say.

I hope the owner can contact me and share with me the details of it. If I can prove the authenticity of it, I wouldn't mind paying double the price for it.

Cheers,

Wilfred