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One more Elmar...


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... or "the pleasure of collecting"... :)

 

Just arrived... it's "11 o'clock"... it's "50 mm"...

 

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and above all ...

 

 

5 digits, my only lens like this !! (have a pair of unnumbered...) and one of the crazes of my collector's attitude is to have at least one lens any "hundred thousand" (from 1xx.xxx to 4.0xx.xxx ... there is currently a "Hole" 3.2 3.3 3.4 :) )

But hadn't a 5 digits !! Between them... Elmar 90 fat are costly (and I have an unnumbered one) so as Hektor 7,3 (and my one was, till now, my oldest s/n ...129.006) Hektor 50 are difficult to find (and my one is anyway a 1xx.xxx) , so has been really happy to find finally, at a decent price, this version of Elmar , being my 2nd one a chrome 5cm 3xx.xxx :).

Edited by luigi bertolotti
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It's far from perfect , cosmetics isn't at all "collector's grade" and testing it on my M240 is a bit annoying because the BM adapters, even with the cutout, haven'it , of course, along the 11 o'clock position, so you cannot set the Elmar at the "clicking" infinty...

 

But it works, and focusing isn't so bad : just to verify, here's my quick test at home, at a "tentative" f8 (a bit under f9...) in comparision with Summicron IV f8 , jpg OOC

 

Full frame (partial)

 

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And 100% crops...

 

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...taking acquaintance of a pair of younger brothers...

 

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Edited by luigi bertolotti
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Nice acquisition, Luigi. Thiele lists a batch of 50mm Elmars with SNs from 94916 to 96026. He attributes this batch to 1932. I have seen examples of 'bell push' 11 O'Clock Elmars with 5 digit SNs on early II Model D cameras. These were subsequently replaced by 7 O'Clock Elmars on later II Model Ds as Leica got ready for the introduction of the III Model F with a slow speed dial.

 

I have two examples of the 50mm Elmar lens with a standardised mark and with no SN, but with a 7 O'Clock mount. One of these came on a 1 Model A from 1930 which had been modified into a Standard. It seems that in that case the lens head with no SN was transferred into a new standardised mount. The other example which I obtained recently did not come with a camera, so no clues there. 

 

The earliest 50mm Elmar SN listed by Thiele is 92,201, but earlier examples exist such as Jerzy's SN 73803. It was a fascinating time in the history of Leica with lots of changes, overlaps and modifications happening within a very short period of time.

 

William

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...

I have two examples of the 50mm Elmar lens with a standardised mark and with no SN, but with a 7 O'Clock mount... 

 

William

Not well visible in my previous pics, my item does have the "o" standardization mark..

 

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William, do you know if it is normal for a coupled lens ? Maybe yes (also my 178.256 Hektor has), but I haven't found infos about...

Edited by luigi bertolotti
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Not well visible in my previous pics, my item does have the "o" standardization mark..

 

attachicon.gifElmar50_5digits_my_detail.jpg

 

William, do you know if it is normal for a coupled lens ? Maybe yes (also my 178.256 Hektor has), but I haven't found infos about...

 

As far as I know (Alan or Jerzy may have further info from their collections) all 'bell push' Elmars have the '0' mark, which indicates that they are standardised. The batch from which your lens comes would have been produced with the II Model D in mind and would, therefore, I believe, have been coupled for a rangefinder. This is confirmed by your 'hose pipe' pictures above. In addition to my 6 I Model As with 11 O'Clock Elmars and 'hockey stick', I have a couple of I Model Cs with 11 O'Clock Elmars, but I have never tested these for coupling. These are not 'bell push' but have a similar infinity stop to the I Model A Elmars in my collection. The lenses on the I Model Cs both have the '0' standardised mark as they are on standardised I Model Cs. I believe that Leica did plan ahead in lens production for forthcoming models such as the introduction of rangefinders and slow speed dials.

 

My two converted 7 O'Clock lenses, mentioned in my previous post, appear to be coupled and I suspect that this was done at the time of the adaptation in the 1930s. I actually tested one of them recently with an adaptor on an M10 and it worked perfectly with the rangefinder.  The reason why each lens needs to be tested individually for coupling is that Leica did produce a number of lenses which were standardised but uncoupled at around that time. I have, for example, a 135mm Elmar which is standardised, but uncoupled. It is marked at the side with a white arrow pointing towards a '0'. What is fascinating about the the period from 1930 to 1932 is that there were so many different variants produced over quite a short period of time.

 

William

Edited by willeica
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Complimenti Luigi
Il mio, déja vu :
 

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Could some lenses be marketed as 5cm and some as 50mm to suit the conventions of the countries they were destined to be sold in? Rather like tripod threads were described as 1/4" = English and 3/8" = Continental. Have any Leica lenses ever been sold with the focal length marked in inches like Taylor, Taylor & Hobson and Cooke both did for LTM fit lenses? 

 

Wilson

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Could some lenses be marketed as 5cm and some as 50mm to suit the conventions of the countries they were destined to be sold in? Rather like tripod threads were described as 1/4" = English and 3/8" = Continental. Have any Leica lenses ever been sold with the focal length marked in inches like Taylor, Taylor & Hobson and Cooke both did for LTM fit lenses? 

 

Wilson

not really, it was rather that early Elmars had focal length in mm, later on in cm. Few yeras ago, together with William (willeica) we had done some reasearch on Elmars 50mm/5cm and we found that:

- standarized IA had 11 oclock Elmar, without infinity lock, uncoupled, with 0

- with Leica II infinity lock has been introduced, 11 oclock, push-bell. Of course all were coupled, with 0

-switch from 50mm to 5cm happened 1933/1934, SN around 200xxx

- 0 on DOF was present until approx 1938 (sn around 435xxx)

of course there are some exceptions resulting from either upgrades/conversions/repairs but as well from the fact that not always the higher SN means later production dates

Edited by jerzy
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not really, it was rather that early Elmars had focal length in mm, later on in cm. Few yeras ago, together with William (willeica) we had done some reasearch on Elmars 50mm/5cm and we found that:

- standarized IA had 11 oclock Elmar, without infinity lock, uncoupled, with 0

- with Leica II infinity lock has been introduced, 11 oclock, push-bell. Of course all were coupled, with 0

-switch from 50mm to 5cm happened 1933/1934, SN around 200xxx

- 0 on DOF was present until approx 1938 (sn around 435xxx)

of course there are some exceptions resulting from either upgrades/conversions/repairs but as well from the fact that not always the higher SN means later production dates

 

Thanks Jerzy. The 50mm Elmar was an 'outlier' in that it was in mm at the beginning and then shifted to cms where it remained for many years with the eventual final shift to back to mms from the 1950/60s onwards. This was not market specific like the distance markings on later lenses which, of course, ended up as both metric and imperial. Interestingly, the only early (I Model A) 50MM Elmars with imperial distance markings were the close focus models for all markets. In the research which Jerzy and I carried out some years ago, we found that there were many other variations in the I Model A 50mm lenses, which are too numerous to mention here. Angela von Einem's book gives some idea of the extent of these.

 

I am sure that, Leica being Leica, someone will now pop up with exceptions to what I have said, but that is all part of the fun of being a collector.

 

William

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.... we found that there were many other variations in the I Model A 50mm lenses, which are too numerous to mention here....

...So many that trying to collect them ALL seems to me a desperate task...

(that's why the only lens I'm trying to have in all its variants is the Summaron 3,5.. maybe one day I will end up... :) )

Edited by luigi bertolotti
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...So many that trying to collect them ALL seems to me a desperate task...

(that's why the only lens I'm trying to have in all its variants is the Summaron 3,5.. maybe one day I will end up... :) )

 

Thanks Luigi. I agree. I am now up to 11 Summars, but the Nickel collapsible with black top, the chrome rigid and the Tropen still escape my clutches. The 50mm Elmar is worse in terms of variants, but I do have an early one from 1926 without the 7m mark which is quite rare. I have most f3.5 Summarons, but I don't have the one with goggles for the M3 (SBLOO has to do). I suppose if we had everything we would cease to be collectors!

 

William

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