Elmar 50mm - lowest serial number

[jerzy]

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Few year ago I was showing my Elmar, it is 73803, in 7 oclock mount. I found as well 72872 (7 oclock) on one of Westlicht auctions. Both have serial number stamped regularly on the front ring, 7 oclock mount must have been added later, they should have been 11 oclock without infinity lock.
Early this year, on one of selling platforms I saw 72835. This Elmar was 11 oclock, no infinity lock (correctly) and the number was not stamped on the front ring, it was stamped inside.

And today I opened IA of my friend and found 71973 stamped inside! This is the first Elmar in fix mount with ( a sort of) "regular" serial number that I saw, until now I believed that fix mount Elmars did not have any serial at all. For IA it is rather late, camera serial is 58xxx,  (not my camera). Inner barrel has as well 51,6 scratched, this is for sure real focal length (corresponds with group 7 for interchangeable)

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[ironringer]

Interesting discovery Jerzy. Have you seen other very old Elmars with interior serial numbers?

And have you seen any very old Elmars with serial numbers both scratched or stamped inside, AND stamped on the front ring?

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[luigi bertolotti]

Really interesting... and brings to me another curiosity which would be very difficult to check :

- As you say, the body is very late for a 1A... it was the transition phase to the first interchangable model - 1C non standard 

- So maybe the optical dep. started in that period to serialize the Elmars with a s/n engraved inside... perhaps because when one assembled the lens cell, it was someway undefined if it would be destined to a fixed lens body or to one of the new interchangable lens body

-  And the very first 1C non std. had the Elmar with all the 5 digits of the matching body engraved on the barrel (in the exterior - visible part : those are very rare... I remember to have seen only the items hereby published by Pecole... the "3 last digits" items are, relatively speaking, much more common)

- So I wonder... an Elmar non std. "5 digits matched" had the SAME number engraved  inside as the item you show, or not ?  By logic, the 5 digits matching number should have been engraved only in the final assembly phase... when  lens and body were matched with shims... maybe, if present, the "internal" s/n of the lens cell could have been different... but finding such an Elmar to verify is very difficult.... 🙄

(thinking better... the same reasoning would apply indeed also to the "3 digit" non standard Elmars... maybe there is someone with an item to verify... of course disassembling the Elmar)

 

Edited September 16, 2021 by luigi bertolotti

[jerzy]

vor 2 Stunden schrieb ironringer:

Interesting discovery Jerzy. Have you seen other very old Elmars with interior serial numbers?

And have you seen any very old Elmars with serial numbers both scratched or stamped inside, AND stamped on the front ring?

the only one other Elmar with SN inside was 72835, no serial stamped on front ring. I have seen photos only, lens was interchangeable. My 73803 does not have number inside. Another low number was 72872 (Westlicht, auction few yers ago). Interchangeable, number stamped on front ring, do noit k now if inside as well (have seen photos only). From now on I will oipen every early Elmar which falls into my hands 🙂

[alan mcfall]

8 hours ago, luigi bertolotti said:

  And the very first 1C non std. had the Elmar with all the 5 digits of the matching body engraved on the barrel (in the exterior - visible part : those are very rare. 

Here is one of mine. Matched to the 182nd  non-standard camera made (1930).  I don't have the camera. I haven't taken it apart to see any internal numbers, but think they would be unlikely.

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[jerzy]

@Luigi - let me comment your topics

Late IA – Hahne list (Band I) says that last IA was 71249. Angela v.Einem however believes that there were no IA above 60500. Factory records are not very precise in this aspect. This camera has highest SN that I have seen for IA.
Transitional period – first camera with interchangeable lenses was produced by Leitz in May 1930, it was 37396. Lenses have 5 digit camera number engraved (like the one Alan is showing above). According to Bawendi the last one five digit non std was 37396, camera is from beginning of June 1930. So 5 digits were engraved for less than one month only. Afterwards lenses have last 3 digits of camera serial engraved. Starting from May 1931 all lenses and IC cameras were produced as standardized, first one is 55404.
This camera, being late 58xxx is not too far away from the last non-std, from timing perspective it could have been 2 month approx. But standardized IC were in production already, could very well be that optical barrel was numbered already.
I have one non-std Elmar and one Hektor 5cm. Both are 3 digit, none of them has number inside.
So I believe too that it was transitional period when Leitz started to assign own serial number to the lenses and at the beginning there were doing it inside, later on the front ring. An indication to support this thesis is what I have seen until now: Elmar 72835 – number only inside, Elmar 72872 – number already on front ring.

Anyhow - if anyone has IA with SN between 55xxx and 60xxx pls let me know. And if you are within EU I can do CLA free of charge for the benefit of looking inside the lens 🙂

[jerzy]

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apology for inconsistency in my posting above - I wrote that Bawendi identified 37396 as last non std with lenses with 5 digits. But Alan shown 39910! So iIreached once more to Bawendi article (Vidom Nr 78). He found non std IC 37432 and 37437 with 3 digits only. Alans lens is an evidence that 5 digits were used as well later. Again - transitional period or conversion in later time when 3 digits were common could possibly explain 3 digits on both 37xxx

Edited September 16, 2021 by jerzy
spelling

[jerzy]

mystery with serial number of fix mounted Elmar partially solved - lens is not original lens which was with originally with this camera.

Camera was shipped on 23.04.1931, but lens left the factory almost one year later, in March 1932. Optical cell has been replaced, in the original IA but only optical cell, mount remained fix mounted. This explains as well why there are 2 indents on the optical cell here. Explanation - optical cell is fixed to the tube with one screw, you may see it on the tube. Left photo shows optical cell with one indent, the second is not visible here. More than one indent is evidence that the mount (tube) and optical cell were not together from very beginning,. Very often you may find 2 indents on lenses that have been converted (fix mount to interchangeable, 11 oclock to 7 oclock) or repaired. In this particular case however we do not have conversion, rather then it is result of repair - repair person took interchangeable lens, (most probably it was 11 oclock, no infinity lock), took optical cell and mounted it into IA. And most probably it has happened not at Leitz, they would take new, unnumbered optical cell like it was the case in many conversions of IA that we have seen (you may find even unnumbered red scale if conversion has been done in fifties). And indeed, Leica does not have any records that neither camera nor lens was in repair'.

Why this repair was done in so complicated way? Do not know, it will remain a mystery. But at least I believe that this is an exception and lenses for IA were not assigned serial number yet.

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