Premise
Whoever wants to know everything about Exa and Exakta must read the book by Clement Aguila and Michel Rouah. Indeed, if the the publishers had wanted to publish everything prepared by the authors, there would be little left to write on the subject.
With this in mind, I face the Ihagee theme not only with the purpose of pointing out, through a series of articles, some possible paths to achieve the completion of a serious collection, but to furnish useful information on the various models as well.
This text was originally written in Italian for the benefit of Italian readers.

My first Exa
I already possessed some Exaktas when a friend of mine, Thomas Beyer, born and graduated as an Architect in Berlin (and in love with Italian Riviera) gave me one of his two Exas. It was a well preserved version 6, body number 594.948, still fully functioning and normally used by him as third or fourth body to optimize the use of his carefully chosen his set of lenses.
I never spoke about this with him, but I think that his cameras were used, up to a few years before, by his father, a very able painter whose job was to tour around the peaks of the Austrian Alps in order to produce three-dimensional views of the tourist valleys. Assembling and modifying the images obtained from the different viewpoints he got complete plans to display places that from a single viewpoint would have remained hidden.

The tortuous paths towards a complete collection
I looked at my first Exa a long time. There was something that I did not like. I did not like the nameplate - a black rectangle with the white inscription Exa. My graphic sensibility, refined by years of experience (it was my job), by years of criticism and of self criticism, did not approve this choice. The comparison with the preceding logo, clear, simple, engraved on the plate of the first VP or on the following 35mm cameras was to all advantage of the tradition.
Not only. This new desin seemed to me an elementary attempt to reveal the conscience of the necessity of change. But which other changes took place during 1961 to the cameras of Dresden, aparts from the graphics of the logo?
While Exa went from one lettering to another, so did the Exakta VX IIa. Aware that the Japaneses were arriving, Ihagee wanted to celebrate 25 years of the 35mm system reflex, and something had to be changed, if only the lettering and the tops of the waist level finder and of the prism.
This was too little to celebrate a quarter of a century, unfortunately the only quarter, of a system which with its constant innovations had always anticipated the movements of the competitors, every day more numerous and more dangerous.
The fantasies of renovation, first seen with the new graphics, obliged Ihagee to meet, within a few years, the reality of a market founded on constant competition and on entrepreneurial dynamics totally unknown to the management of the firms of Eastern Europe.
In a closed market, under a full autarchy, Ihagee would have had the capability of survival but export all over the world had to compete with the Japanese, who, as in all the other sectors, were in ambush.
Like selling their new motorbikes at undercutting prices - the same happened with copiers - they accelerated the break-up of historic firms like BSA, Norton, Triumph. They did the same with the glorious Exakta.
But to return to my first Exa.
The first created the desire of possessing a second Exa, an earlier model that must keep the characteristics of the Exaktas which I already owned, handmade jewels without trace of modernism.
My Exaktas had engraved front panels. Even my future Exa must be so. I did not know if it even existed, but surely it did; the cameras I had were there to demonstrate it.
I bought immediately Michel Auer's books and I had the proof: at the catalogue number 2428 in volume three, I found the photo of an Exa (I didn't know it yet at those days but it was a 1957 version 4). I started to search for it.
I began with Gabriele Balderacchi (Fotocamera was the name of the shop) in Milan and with Carnicelli in Florence, near the Dome, the unique two collectors shops that I was acquainted with. I put some ads on Fotografare and on other magazines. I sent ads to free papers. I asked for catalogues from Ginestra and from Pelloso, from Crescenzi and Gaggini brothers (dealers-collectors) and, finally, I found it. Finally? No. It was only the beginning!
How did I find it?
A trip for my job, an appointment moved for a couple of hours and the usual walk searching for the right shop (later I will tell you of the way in which you can find it). This situation has been repeated so frequently that the ceremony has become ordinary.
I have learned to know, as a pedestrian, a large number of towns, not only in Italy. That kind of search has become for me a medium, not a goal, and in each case I remain pleased, not frustrated.
The right shop (in fact very right one considering that in a small showcase at the right side of the entry there was an Exa with the old style plate) was De Bernardi, in Rome.
I remember how much I paid for it, I remember too how satisfied I was, I remember also that, thinking about it on the journey home, I suspected that that day was the beginning of a long history.
I began in fact to acquire the existing catalogues, the McKeown, the Blue Book and other books, so I discovered that nobody knew anything definite and that the published prices were valid, if they were valid prices, only for the different national markets, those where the catalogue was printed.
In Italy the prices seemed fixed.
Ten years ago in order to sell an Exa, a private seller asked about £40 and on a shop the price fluctuated among £40 and £60. For an Exakta the asking price was a 20-30% higher, indipendently by the model because, I repeat, nobody knew anything and the unique points of reference, the price guides, furnished prices absolutely inadeguate to the real value of the cameras: $45-$70. The confusion lasted a long time.
For example: five years ago the clerk of a shop, here in Genoa, who was offering an Exa IIb that he later sold at £100, spoke about the lens (very common) as a rare one and described exceptional the fact that the camera had a curtain shutter. On 8th April that year I received that camera as a gift for my birthday and when, with the familiarity which ties two persons who live together, I knew the price. I went to the shop to protest.
The craftsman of the fraud, Giuseppe by name, had known me for many years. Despite the fact that I was a customer (up to that day) he didn't accept my remonstrations and he held to his valuation (in qualitative terms too), blaked up by the owner of the shop.
Going back to our history the bigger problem was the lack of information.
I asked to Bruno Palazzi, expert in photography, consultant for Cattaneo (Leitz importer for many years) and author of a Canon book, whether a search on the Exakta system was not justified and if he was disposed to write it. He gave me a useful answer: I should have to continue to look for, acquiring the models that I didn't have and those I had too, whenever they were in better condition or slightly different from mine. Only by proceeding this way would I know more, comparing the different information from collectors and dealers.

There was no other thing to, do and I started.

The beginning
I learned not put my telephone number on the "wanted", ads in order to receive written offers (and details), with therefore the possibility of choosing between them.
I learned to do it, above all, because in response to one of my ads, a man (who is still makink ads on every Italian photo magazine) asked me a high sum for an Exa Version 5 (I didn't have one and I bought it) telling me: "..it is owned by an elderly lady I know who at this moment is in a serious need of money.."
I accepted because I am not able of bargain and I 'll always be so.
Among all persons who have answered me I feel closest to Mr Vincenzo G. from Naples, member of the Italian Touring Club. I still keep his letter where, after the list of cameras and Ihagee accessories, he asked me to make him an offer "..from amateur to amateur, so that i am not obliged to regret selling it: every time I sell a camera I feel bad for a long time.."
I didn't answer him. In fact I am answering him now. Any sum, and above all the right cipher, would have seemed to me an insufficient one.
I am not capable of bargaining; I sometimes ask timidly: "Is it the last price?" That often produces two results: not only do they give me a little discount, but above all, with my obvious intention to purchase, the dialogue begins. The dialogue often continues through the years, and it lets me to get advance information from the dealers about the cameras I am looking for. Usually, in these circumstances, I acquire, so that I can continue to get the advance information, and acknowledge the service I receive. He who deals with me the knows that I know the market well (or at least the specific sector that concerns me).
There are other situations in which I am involved in a different manner.
When the request is too high, I resort to little tricks to bring the price down within accettable terms.