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earliest M mount Summicron 5 cm?


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Could owners comment on serial numbers of the earliest M mount Summicron 5 cm collapsible lenses, introduced for the M3?

I believe that the earliest (Spring 1954) brochures for the new M3 show the camera with a collapsible 5 cm Summicron with serial number 1104xxx. Does anyone else out there (like me) have a collapsible M mount Summicron with an earlier serial number?

Note that collapsible LTM Summicrons date from as early as 1951, with serial numbers as low as 920xxx (example observed on eBay from an Austrian dealer). The earliest M mount Summicrons probably date from very late 1953 or early 1954, to coincide with the M3 announcement.

It may be interesting to compile a list of the earliest M mount Summicrons, currently used/owned by Forum members.

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I think is a difficult question to define with absolute certainess : the first official batch of M mount only Summicrons seems to be the 1.143.001 - 1.145.000 but given that it was designed in a period in which M3 was already in development phase, there are surely several items before 1.143.001 (and f3p5 seems to have such an item) ; Lager displays an M mount Summicron 1.042.553 .... I don't remember to have seen numbers previous to this one... personally ,I have one of the very first ones in LTM mount (920.382, from the first batch... the glass of those items wasn't yet the one developed inside Leitz... strangely, it came from a British manufacturer)

Edited by luigi bertolotti
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The early (maybe first?) English M3 brochure dated III/54/FLX shows a collapsible M-mount Summicron with s/n 1105156. A slightly later M3 brochure dated V-54-DZ shows an M3 with a collapsible M-mount Summicron with s/n 1104422. Because of two different lenses in similar brochures, this probably indicates that those Summicrons were not prototypes, but taken from early production batches, for advertising photographs.

Does anyone have earlier M3 literature showing early Summicrons?

I recently acquired a very early M3 s/n 700824 with an M-mount collapsible Summicron that is even earlier than the two lenses shown in those early M3 brochures - s/n 1103464. The seller remembers his father buying the camera with this lens in 1954 in New York, so some of the earliest M3 cameras were sold in the USA. I doubt that a factory prototype lens would be sent to New York for dealer sale, so I believe this is a very early production Summicron, for public sale.

Please continue to report serial numbers of early collapsible M-Mount Summicrons, an interesting topic.

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Excellent research, thank you Mr. Bertolotti.

Reviewing my "saved pictures" files, I came across an earlier collapsible M-mount Summicron 5 cm, s/n  993365 from 1952, pictures attached.

As a conservative "proceed slowly and carefully" company, Leitz was obviously researching/using the M-mount long (2+ years) before they introduced the M3 in 1954.

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Fascinating ! I "discovered" your initial thread, ironringer, when investigating about the five-digits lenses in my former Fontenelle Collection, for answering one more question by our "inevitable" Luigi Bertolotti ;) .

I never had an early BM collapsible Summicron 50, the serials in my files being 1144934, 1317851, 1351541 and 1370680.

But among the 49 Summicrons 50 that passed through my collection, I had one very close to the BM one nº 993365 you illustrated : 993930. Except that mine was screw-mount...

My other collapsible ones were all screw-mount : nº 1044907, 1091893 and 1375781.

 

And now, let me just add one word for Ileo (hoping that he still follows the thread :huh:),  : I didn't forget your proposal to send an USB key filled with my digitized Leica files, but we need at least to exchange postal addresses. How to do that?

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I have screw mount Summicrons: 920,109---920,218---920,838---921,255---921,965

Earliest Bayonet mount Summicron I have is  1,044,534

Hi, Alan. 

I was interested in hearing about your BM Summicron 1,044,534, this serial being lower than the one of my SCREW nº 1,044,907! Leica numbering system was definitely not designed to help collectors !

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  • 3 weeks later...

I had a bayonet mount 1153037 for a couple of years, so obviously it was manufactured a little later than the earliest ones - I never did the research during the period of my ownership, I was just glad to have a summicron to use at that time.

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Collapsible Summicron M 50mm #1152077.

Gary

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