Mystery Rectangles In Viewfinder?

[MadisonWI]

I picked up a nice old Pentax K2 SLR body at the thrift store the other day, and noticed a VERY faint crack or something when I looked through the viewfinder. Looking more closely (and without a lens attached) I noticed it was actually crudely "etched" rectangles, on some piece of the viewfinder glass! I don't think it's on the focusing screen (because that's the usual split prism) but some other piece of glass inside there. There are three rectangles, arranged roughly in the shape seen below. They only take up the horizontal middle of the view, almost from edge to edge.



Any ideas what this is about? I've bought and sold a LOT of SLR bodies over the years, and never seen this.

Thanks!

 

[dxqcanada]

What do you mean by "crudely" ?

 

[KmH]

Sounds like someone may have tried to customize the focusing screen.

 

[Josh66]

You can get focusing screens with guide lines etched into them - 8x10 crop lines, grid, thirds, golden ratio, etc... Does it seem to match something like that?

 

[compur]

If it's crudely done it's almost certainly a customization of some kind by a former owner. The camera may have been used on a copy stand or other specialized setup and the lines were added to simplify alignment.

 

[webestang64]

If it's crudely done it's almost certainly a customization of some kind by a former owner. The camera may have been used on a copy stand or other specialized setup and the lines were added to simplify alignment.

I'm guilty of mangling many a camera working in labs doing copy work.

 

[MadisonWI]

Ah yes, this makes sense:

The camera may have been used on a copy stand or other specialized setup and the lines were added to simplify alignment.

Now I want to know what kind of work the user was doing that required this particular "specialized setup"! We may never know...

Thanks!