Elmar 135/4,5 Nº 100.170 in 1931 Nagel camera and other Elmars in non-leica cameras

[carlos arnaiz]

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ERNST LEITZ ELMAR on non-Leica cameras, 1931

I'm coming to you to see if you can lend me a hand.

 

My name is Carlos, I am new to the forum, and I have come to you in search of information that I cannot find online, nor has Leica been able to confirm.

 

In addition to my 1936 Leica IIIa (No. 193780), I am particularly interested in August Nagel cameras from 1928 to 1942.

 The famous Nagel Pupille (December 1930) was equipped with Elmar 3.5/5 lenses as an option and was a big seller. Other Nagel models also used Ernst Leitz lenses, such as the Vollendas 048, the 70, and the Recomar 18 and 33. There were also some other brands that offered Elmar lenses in their cameras, Welta, for example.

 

The Elmar lens numbers observed on these non-Leica cameras all appear to fall between 100,000 and 114,000.

 

The Leica lens listings found online begin at 100,000 in 1931.

 

I have a Nagel Recomar 33 equipped with an Elmar 4.5/13.5 lens, serial number 100170.

 

I contacted Leica, and they told me that the entire double-page logbook between 100101 and 100200 is completely blank, with no entries whatsoever. They sent me the page, and indeed it is blank (it seems the preceding and following pages are also blank, 100051 to 100100 and 100201 to 100250). They say they have no further information, but that it might be in a specific book.

 

I also checked with Leica regarding my Elmar 3.5/5 serial number 105929 from my Pupille camera, and they were able to provide me with a delivery date of January 14, 1932.

 

That's been a long introduction; now for the question I need your help with:

 

Does anyone have information about these Elmar lenses mounted on cameras other than Leica?

 

Does anyone know how many were supplied to the different brands?

 

Can you think of any way to delve deeper into this topic?

 

Thank you very much in advance.

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[jerzy]

There were more brands using Elmar lenses, like Beier (Elmar 10,5cm), Mentor Dreivier, Kochmann Korelle, Certo Dollina, etc. Check for the book from Thiele, it starts with serial 92000.

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Btw. Leica started to assign serial number to 5cm Elmars s with approx 70000/71000, number was however hidden, visible only after dismantling. But this is not subject of your question, I believe

[willeica]

8 hours ago, carlos arnaiz said:

ERNST LEITZ ELMAR on non-Leica cameras, 1931

I'm coming to you to see if you can lend me a hand.

 

My name is Carlos, I am new to the forum, and I have come to you in search of information that I cannot find online, nor has Leica been able to confirm.

 

In addition to my 1936 Leica IIIa (No. 193780), I am particularly interested in August Nagel cameras from 1928 to 1942.

 The famous Nagel Pupille (December 1930) was equipped with Elmar 3.5/5 lenses as an option and was a big seller. Other Nagel models also used Ernst Leitz lenses, such as the Vollendas 048, the 70, and the Recomar 18 and 33. There were also some other brands that offered Elmar lenses in their cameras, Welta, for example.

 

The Elmar lens numbers observed on these non-Leica cameras all appear to fall between 100,000 and 114,000.

 

The Leica lens listings found online begin at 100,000 in 1931.

 

I have a Nagel Recomar 33 equipped with an Elmar 4.5/13.5 lens, serial number 100170.

 

I contacted Leica, and they told me that the entire double-page logbook between 100101 and 100200 is completely blank, with no entries whatsoever. They sent me the page, and indeed it is blank (it seems the preceding and following pages are also blank, 100051 to 100100 and 100201 to 100250). They say they have no further information, but that it might be in a specific book.

 

I also checked with Leica regarding my Elmar 3.5/5 serial number 105929 from my Pupille camera, and they were able to provide me with a delivery date of January 14, 1932.

 

That's been a long introduction; now for the question I need your help with:

 

Does anyone have information about these Elmar lenses mounted on cameras other than Leica?

 

Does anyone know how many were supplied to the different brands?

 

Can you think of any way to delve deeper into this topic?

 

Thank you very much in advance.

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Simply register for free here – We are always happy to welcome new members!

I'm delighted to see someone taking an interest in this. Leitz dabbled with supplying 'the trade' in the early 1930s, but soon pulled out of this. Back then, Zeiss was regarded as the cream of the crop and Schneider and Meyer were also highly regarded, so Leitz, which was a relative newcomer in this field, would have had to struggle to compete. Back then, there was a model used by firms, largely based in or near Dresden, which involved putting a high quality German lens in a leaf shutter made by Deckel or Gauthier at the end of a bellows on a roll film camera. This was the formula for success in the 1930s and even for a while after WWII. Barnack had set out his stall with a focal plane shutter and eventually, after some experiments in the UK with the fitting of British lenses to Leicas, Barnack was able to introduce the interchangeable lens concept in 1930 for the Leica. Leitz clearly decided to stick with its main plan, where it had a comparative advantage, and not supply the trade where it faced competition. So by about 1933 or 1934 Leitz was out of that trade. 

I did a presentation in 2022 about this whole business for the Photographic Collectors Club of Great Britain (PCCGB). Unfortunately due to a technical glitch, my presentation did not make it onto the club's You Tube page. My slides which deal with this in detail are 70 Mb. I will reach out to you by PM and if you can send me your email I can send you the full file by We Transfer or Dropbox. You may find a lot of the answers to your questions in there. Besides the Thiele Leitz lens list book, shown by Jerzy above, there are two other books by Thiele about Deckel and the Kodak Retina (featuring Nagel at length) respectively which are worth looking at. Both are in German as is most of the literature in this area. English speaking authors have pretty much ignored this important area of camera development and it is not well dealt with in the English language which was one of things that inspired my 2022 talk for PCCGB.

I have examples of Elmars on the Nagel Vollenda and Pupille and the Welta Weltini as well as a stand alone 10.5 cm Elmar which was probably intended for the Recomar. Some of them can be seen on this thread

 

 

The Elmars made for the Kochmann Korelle K are quite different and are also extremely rare. They have a focus mechanism and aperture setting in a very tiny, but fully specced, lens which fits on top of a Deckel shutter as shown below.

I have one of those lenses but have never got it fully fitted. My story is that I bought a Kochmann Korelle K with a Leitz Elmar like the ones you have shown above. Lars Netopil told me that this was incorrect and that I should seek out one of the special lenses which I managed to obtain. I was going to give it to a specialist service guy here in Dublin, but then he passed away. I have since obtained another Korelle K with another brand of lens, so maybe I have enough parts to produce a working Korelle K with a Leitz lens, but special cassettes are also needed for the half frame camera. The Korelle K was available with Meyer, Schneider and Zeiss lenses and Leitz was late to the game with special lenses for that camera. The result was that the 3.5 cm Leitz lens is very rare, the 5cm lens has never been seen and there are only 2 known examples of the 7.5cm lens. They are among the rarest of all Leitz lenses.

There is a lot more in my presentation which I'm happy to send to you.

I'm not surprised that details in Wetzlar about these lenses are scarce. They would have been supplied in batches to the trade. In addition they always paid less attention to recording the details of lenses than they did with the cameras. In addition optical records tended to be kept in the Optical Department. Finally, this trade ended long before WWII and a lot of records were destroyed during the war. I have no idea where Thiele obtained the few bits and pieces which he has included in his book. 

All that being said, there is a lot of room for research if anyone is willing to undertake it. 

William 

[carlos arnaiz]

2 hours ago, jerzy said:

Había más marcas que usaban objetivos Elmar, como Beier (Elmar 10,5cm), Mentor Dreivier, Kochmann Korelle, Certo Dollina, etc. Busca el libro de Thiele, empieza con el número de serie 92000.

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Por cierto, Leica empezó a asignar número de serie a Elmars de 5 cm con aproximadamente 70000/71000, aunque el número quedó oculto, visible solo tras desmontarlo. Pero creo que este no es el tema de tu pregunta

Thank you very much!

 

I will review it carefully, but I see some inconsistencies with other cameras observed. Some are in batches that are not reflected, or even the 135s in the 105 batch...

In another post in this group, certain discrepancies between the book and reality have been observed.

But thank you very much!

 

[jerzy]

vor 34 Minuten schrieb willeica:

I was going to give it to a specialist service guy here in Dublin, but then he passed away.

William, can you send me (PM or email) some photos of the mount of your special Elmar and shutter in your Korelle? If you are interested I may try to put them together, I have autocollimator so I am able to check focusing

[UliWer]

Well, Thiele (4.th edition 2022) lists a batch of 1:4.5/13.5cm Elmars for Nagel (Recomar) from 100111 to 100489 and a batch of 1:3.5/5cm Elmars from 104861 to 107863 (Pupille, Vollenda) both from 1932  - the items shown in #1 fit.

 

[willeica]

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2 hours ago, jerzy said:

William, can you send me (PM or email) some photos of the mount of your special Elmar and shutter in your Korelle? If you are interested I may try to put them together, I have autocollimator so I am able to check focusing

Thanks, Jerzy. I now have two Kochmann Korelle Ks and I will pull them both out and photograph them for you. I think that between the two bodies ( brown and red) and with the Leitz lens we might be able to put something together. The shutters are difficult as they rely on a prong which needs careful alignment and also opening them can be difficult.. When I get some photos, I will email them to you.

1 hour ago, UliWer said:

Well, Thiele (4.th edition 2022) lists a batch of 1:4.5/13.5cm Elmars for Nagel (Recomar) from 100111 to 100489 and a batch of 1:3.5/5cm Elmars from 104861 to 107863 (Pupille, Vollenda) both from 1932  - the items shown in #1 fit.

 

Thanks, Uli. I have sent the page from the 2014 edition to Carlos (it is in my set of slides) and it seems to line up with what you have mentioned.

William 

[luigi bertolotti]

Will and Uli... I have a collateral question about the ELZEN : 105mm 6,3... typical combination for low cost 6x9 (in absolute terms, the first camera I used,at 12, was such... 😉) : is there no news about the Elmar of this kind mounted an some 6x9 ?  

[UliWer]

Thiele does not mention Elmars 1:6.3/10.5cm which were made for other cameras. There are several batches of 1:4.5/10.5cm Elmars from 100556 to 113471 for the Nagel Recomar (and 200 items for the Welta Weltur). A small batch of 20 examples up to 113722 went for a Beier camera). 

[willeica]

1 minute ago, luigi bertolotti said:

Will and Uli... I have a collateral question about the ELZEN : 105mm 6,3... typical combination for low cost 6x9 (in absolute terms, the first camera I used,at 12, was such... 😉) : is there no news about the Elmar of this kind mounted an some 6x9 ?  

That was a common formula, 10.5cm f6,3 which appeared in the Berg Elmar and elsewhere. It may have started with Zeiss https://collectiblend.com/Lenses/Zeiss,-Carl-Jena/105mm-f6.3-Anastigmat-(brass).html. As Uli says, the f 4.5 10.5cm was made for other manufacturers. I have shown example of that lens in a post I linked above.

William  

[carlos arnaiz]

5 hours ago, UliWer said:

Thiele does not mention Elmars 1:6.3/10.5cm which were made for other cameras. There are several batches of 1:4.5/10.5cm Elmars from 100556 to 113471 for the Nagel Recomar (and 200 items for the Welta Weltur). A small batch of 20 examples up to 113722 went for a Beier camera). 

The Recomar 33s are larger and use 4.5/13.5 lenses; there's little doubt about that. The smaller Recomar 18s were equipped with 10.5cm Elmar 4.5 lenses, but so were the Nagel 74 and the later Vollenda 620s for Porst. The Pupilles used Elmar 3.5/5 lenses, but so did the Vollenda 48s. I'm not sure if Thiele is accurate in identifying the specific model.

[luigi bertolotti]

Thanks, Will and Uli : so, no 3rd parties for the 105 6,3... 4,5 undoubtly was more " sellable" to them.. and maybe Leitz was already in the mood to abandon that businness... in their own lenses' lineup, a 105 6,3 had a sense, for it was possible to make a very light item : 240 vs. 550 g, so well distinguished from the 135. 

Edited 4 hours ago by luigi bertolotti

[willeica]

2 hours ago, carlos arnaiz said:

The Recomar 33s are larger and use 4.5/13.5 lenses; there's little doubt about that. The smaller Recomar 18s were equipped with 10.5cm Elmar 4.5 lenses, but so were the Nagel 74 and the later Vollenda 620s for Porst. The Pupilles used Elmar 3.5/5 lenses, but so did the Vollenda 48s. I'm not sure if Thiele is accurate in identifying the specific model.

 

42 minutes ago, luigi bertolotti said:

Thanks, Will and Uli : so, no 3rd parties for the 105 6,3... 4,5 undoubtly was more " sellable" to them.. and maybe Leitz was already in the mood to abandon that businness... in their own lenses' lineup, a 105 6,3 had a sense, for it was possible to make a very light item : 240 vs. 550 g, so well distinguished from the 135. 

If you look at the book by Willi Kerkmann called 'Deutsche Kameras 1900 -1945' you will see hundreds of different roll film camera variants with endless lens and frame size variations. This was the trade which Leitz started to supply and then left rather rapidly. Luigi, I agree that the 10.5cm f6.3 lens was used for the Berg Elmar because it produced a very light lens at the end of a hollow tube, ideal for up lugging alpine slopes. 

While we are on this topic, I acquired this item at the Leitz Auction last Saturday. It includes a Schneider made 10.5 cm f6.3 lens (for 6x9 format) on a hollow tube attached to a I Model A. Done privately, this could have been a precursor of the Berg Elmar.

https://www.leitz-auction.com/en/Leica-I-Mod.-A-with-Radionar-Anastigmat-6.3-10.5cm/A02419

Anyone who has watched my YouTube video on British lenses on Early Leicas will know that the first interchangeable lens Leicas were modified in Britain and not in Wetzlar. Leitz then copied some of the features used by the British experimenters. I will report on my interesting auction item when I receive it. It seems to have functioning focus and aperture  controls. Not as elegant as a Berg Elmar, of course, and it will probably have a 33mm mount rather than 39mm. I have a Berg Elmar to compare it with. I do tend to buy unusual items at auction. 

William  

Edited 4 hours ago by willeica