Early Nickel & Chrome 35mm f3.5 Elmar 11 o'clock

[Pyrogallol]

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On a dull cold spring day this little gem arrived in the post;

A Nickel 35mm f3.5 Elmar body in a chrome 11 o'clock focussing mount.

 No infinity catch. No visible serial number.

The long focus stop screw looks nickel.

The mounting flange is smaller than the camera body lens mount. I have read about that on the forum, but thought it only related to early interchangable 50mm Elmars.

Both parts have a "O" for standardised. It couples with the camera rangefinder and the distence scale seems to match the rangefinded distence, the scale goes down to 2 feet. The focussing cam on the back of the lens shows machining marks and looks quite different from an ordinary pre-war 35mm Elmar that I have. Could it have been converted from an un-coupled model? Maybe an "unofficial" conversion using mismatched nickel and chrome parts, both early?

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Edited April 3, 2019 by Pyrogallol

[romanus53]

looks great, really a gem! is it rf-coupled?

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[jerzy]

Similarly like 50 mm Elmar without infinity lock as well the 35mm has flange with smaller diameter. 11 o'clock with infinity lock have flange of 47mm like 7 o'clock lenses. Conversion? Probably yes, from mtr to feet, possibly not by Leitz, I would expect that Leitz would use nickel plated flange and button. Conversion from non std would have number engraved on DOF, it is nickeled thus probably not replaced.

[Pyrogallol]

3 hours ago, romanus53 said:

looks great, really a gem! is it rf-coupled?

Yes.

[willeica]

I have an early 'heavy cam' nickel 11 O'Clock 35mm Elmar with SN 149890. It came in a purple pill box and its SN is from 1932 according to Thiele. The lens is standardised and the distance flange (in feet) is the same size as the mount on a II or a III. On a III, however, the focus knob clashes with the slow speed dial at infinity because of the 11 O'Clock position.

As it has no SN, the lens shown above predates my one. My guess is that somebody replaced the flange shown above with a less wide one and also reduced the size of the handle for the infinity knob to enable the lens to be used with a III by avoiding contact with the slow speed dial. The only flange available for the job may have been a chrome one. The big question is whether this was done by Leica or by a skilled craft worker. I suspect it was the latter as Leica would have more likely changed the infinity stop to the 7 O'Clock position. It is difficult to be certain so many years later. I am fairly certain about the reason for the smaller flange, though.

William

[Susie]

10 hours ago, willeica said:

The big question is whether this was done by Leica or by a skilled craft worker. I suspect it was the latter

Just my tuppenny's worth. 

Comparing the engraving with my early lenses, that on the new dial looks very Wetzlarish. As the distances are in feet, if the replacement was done in Britain I would expect the decimals to have a full stop between the numbers and not a comma, as done on the continent, i.e.  3.5 and not 3,5 just a small point, no pun intended, but then we are dealing with minutiae. 

Susie

Edited April 4, 2019 by Susie

[willeica]

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27 minutes ago, Susie said:

Just my tuppenny's worth. 

Comparing the engraving with my early lenses, that on the new dial looks very Wetzlarish. As the distances are in feet, if the replacement was done in Britain I would expect the decimals to have a full stop between the numbers and not a comma, as done on the continent, i.e.  3.5 and not 3,5 just a small point, no pun intended, but then we are dealing with minutiae. 

Susie

Thanks Susie. I have no doubt the distance flange came from Wetzlar. It does, however, seem to have been planed down at the edge, which is quite obvious from the rear. It is also obvious that the infinity knob and handle are now quite clear of the slow speed dial. On my lens the infinity knob touches the slow speed dial (see photo below) at 11 O'Clock. It will also be noted that the distance numbers on my lens are at 90 degrees to those shown above ie they are circumferential rather than radial. The altered distance flange above clearly came from a different lens. This is what the original flange would have looked like. Note that it fully covers the lens mount on the camera.

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William

[Susie]

Hi William,

Yes, using 11 o'clock lenses can be a problem with the slow speed dial. I  have only one - an Hektor, which I keep on my Leica 11 as they are the same age (1932).  My 3.5cm Elmar is 7 o'clock.

Susie

[tranquilo67]

Hi,

In my limited experience/observation, it looks like Leica was upgrading/repairing old equipment with the materials in use in the moment of that upgrade/repair. I have seen several Black-Nickel with knobs replaced by chrome ones.

So my guess is that this lens could come from a IA conversion. This would be the reason for being an 11 O'clock without having a infinity lock.

With the conversion they need to add the screw mount to that lens. If it would have happened let's say late 30's (or later) the material used by then could have been chrome instead of Nickel.

Best regards

[willeica]

3 hours ago, Susie said:

Hi William,

Yes, using 11 o'clock lenses can be a problem with the slow speed dial. I  have only one - an Hektor, which I keep on my Leica 11 as they are the same age (1932).  My 3.5cm Elmar is 7 o'clock.

Susie

 

2 hours ago, tranquilo67 said:

Hi,

In my limited experience/observation, it looks like Leica was upgrading/repairing old equipment with the materials in use in the moment of that upgrade/repair. I have seen several Black-Nickel with knobs replaced by chrome ones.

So my guess is that this lens could come from a IA conversion. This would be the reason for being an 11 O'clock without having a infinity lock.

With the conversion they need to add the screw mount to that lens. If it would have happened let's say late 30's (or later) the material used by then could have been chrome instead of Nickel.

Best regards

Here is my I Model A (SN 23862 from 1930) converted to a Standard some time after 1933. The original 50mm Elmar lens with no SN has been put into a full size 7 O'Clock mount as by that stage the III had been introduced and the owner of the lens might have wanted to use it with a III. I might add at this stage that introduction of the standardised '0' mount by Leica in the early 1930s was probably more radical than the L mount business is today and it meant that any standardised lens could be used on any Leica camera with a standardised mount. This treatment of a 7 O'Clock conversion by Leica was common at that time and I have seen other examples of this and I have another 11 O'Clock to 7 O'Clock conversion nickel 50mm Elmar in my collection.

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As for the point made by tranquilo67, it may well have been the case that at some stage after the late 1930s that Leica used chrome rather nickel for replacement parts, but this ignores this the fact that for Leica it would have been as easy to have put in a 7 O'Clock distance flange, as was its standard practice, than to have ground down the distance flange to make it smaller than the lens mount as has been done in this case. This looks to me like a job that has been done by a skilled repair person to ensure that a client could use an 11 O'Clock 35mm Elmar with a III without having to do a 7 O'Clock conversion as no 7 O'Clock mount was available.

William

Edited April 4, 2019 by willeica

[jerzy]

there are 2 variants of 11 oclock mount for Elmars, earlier one is without infinity lock and lens flange is 45mm. Adding infinity lock required lens flange to be larger, otherwise pressing the pin would go against  flange on camera which was 47mm already from IC. 11 oclock lenses without infinity lock was produced in both non coupled and coupled version, very early coupled did not have SN stamped outside. This is how it was for 50mm Elmars, I believe that it was not different for 35mm.

Comming back to the lens from Pyrogallol - it my speculation about the history but there are some facts to support it.  Lens has flange chromed, as well focus tab is chromed. DOF is nickeled, I assume it was not replaced. Non-std DOF would have 3 or 5 digit SN engraved. This is why I believe that the lens was produced as std, coupled or non-coupled cannot be determined.

All 11 oclock lenses were produced as nickeled only, fact that both flange and focus tab are chromed I interprete that chroming was done by third party.

What could be the reason ro replace the knob? Well, it is not seldom that it got lost, it is just screwed in. And the reason why lens flange was replaced  is for me converting from mtr to feet. Why chromed parts were used and not nickeled is already beyond my speculations...

[Pyrogallol]

Thanks everyone for the interesting and informative replies.

now to use the lens.

 

(twice I have written longer replies with more pictures and notes, twice the website threw me off before I could post it ! )

[willeica]

1 hour ago, jerzy said:

there are 2 variants of 11 oclock mount for Elmars, earlier one is without infinity lock and lens flange is 45mm. Adding infinity lock required lens flange to be larger, otherwise pressing the pin would go against  flange on camera which was 47mm already from IC. 11 oclock lenses without infinity lock was produced in both non coupled and coupled version, very early coupled did not have SN stamped outside. This is how it was for 50mm Elmars, I believe that it was not different for 35mm.

Comming back to the lens from Pyrogallol - it my speculation about the history but there are some facts to support it.  Lens has flange chromed, as well focus tab is chromed. DOF is nickeled, I assume it was not replaced. Non-std DOF would have 3 or 5 digit SN engraved. This is why I believe that the lens was produced as std, coupled or non-coupled cannot be determined.

All 11 oclock lenses were produced as nickeled only, fact that both flange and focus tab are chromed I interprete that chroming was done by third party.

What could be the reason ro replace the knob? Well, it is not seldom that it got lost, it is just screwed in. And the reason why lens flange was replaced  is for me converting from mtr to feet. Why chromed parts were used and not nickeled is already beyond my speculations...

Thanks Jerzy. As regards flanges, the 50mm Elmar lens on my I Model C SN 58089 - no SN on lens- is 45mm, but lenses from around 1932 onwards all seem to be 47mm. You are right in saying that a lens with 47mm flange and an infinity lock had inherent difficulties in being used with the slow speed dial of a III, as I have demonstrated above. The first chrome lenses would have been produced for the 'bright chrome' IIIs which came in at the beginning of 1933, but these would have been 7 O'Clock. I have only seen 11 O'Clock lenses in nickel which begs the question as to how this flange exists at all in chrome. Perhaps it was a re-chromed flange, although that does not make much sense. There is still an aura of mystery about this, but I feel that it is unlikely that the work here was done by Leica, even though it involved Leica parts. Your theory about changing from metres to feet is interesting, but it still raises the the question of how an 11 O'Clock feet marked chrome flange exists.

William

Edited April 4, 2019 by willeica

[ironringer]

Very interesting discussions about an unusual lens with an unknown history. However - the main question is - how does it perform?

We would like to see a couple of pictures taken with it at open and smaller apertures

[Pyrogallol]

I will be using it over the next few days, FP4 in Leica 11, will hopefully have something to print scan and upload.

[jerzy]

James,

your lens could be a nice object for restoration, to make it full nickel. Recently I had similar case, Hektor 2,8cm, full nickel only the front ring was chromed (must have been replaced).

Removing chrome plating revealed intact nickel plating underneath, a friendly galvaniseour made it for me for small amount. Photos show disassembled lens before and assemblied after.

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[Michael Geschlecht]

9 hours ago, jerzy said:

James,

your lens could be a nice object for restoration, to make it full nickel. Recently I had similar case, Hektor 2,8cm, full nickel only the front ring was chromed (must have been replaced).

Removing chrome plating revealed intact nickel plating underneath, a friendly galvaniseour made it for me for small amount. Photos show disassembled lens before and assemblied after.

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Hello Jerzy,

It is my understanding that chrome on brass plating has an interlayer of nickel plating. Isn't that what a person generally finds when they remove the chrome layer on any brass lens part or brass camera body part?

Best Regards,

Michael

Edited April 5, 2019 by Michael Geschlecht

[jerzy]

vor 15 Stunden schrieb Michael Geschlecht:

 

It is my understanding that chrome on brass plating has an interlayer of nickel plating.

yes, Michael, this is what my galvaniseur told me and this was confirmed by the excercise with Hektor front ring. When rechroming for me he is firstly plating with copper, than comes nickel and then chrome. This is how he is doing on brass serufaces, process might be different if part is not brass. In case of removing outer chrome plating he is removing (ectrolically or chemically, I do not know) chrome only, nickel underneath is not affected.

[TomB_tx]

Copper-Nickel-Chrome was also the sequence for the best Chrome plating on steel, as it assures the best adhesion of each layer.

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Hallo,

Look here: Interesting Leica gear

[Michael Geschlecht]

4 hours ago, TomB_tx said:

Copper-Nickel-Chrome was also the sequence for the best Chrome plating on steel, as it assures the best adhesion of each layer.

Hello Tom,

A process invented by a friend of mine's uncle.

Best Regards,

Michael