W-NIKKOR•C 1:2.5 f=3.5cm no.262378 lens on my leica IIIf circa 1951/52?

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I was given this camera as a wedding gift and would like to know more about it. the serial # on the camera is Nr.607358. it was manufactured some time between 1951-52. what i haven't been able to find anything about the lens. If anyone could help clear this out it would be great. tha

-- phil von allmen (pva@telus.net), September 14, 2001

Answers

Response to W-NIKKOR•C 1:2.5 f=3.5cm no.262378 lens on my leica IIIf circa 1951/52?

Hi Phil,

Dr Owl has fluttered back to Southampton from a vacation in Scotland to find a wonderfully detailed question about Nikon: one that will allow him to ramble on at length. Whoopee!

W-NIKKOR.C: The "W" just means that Nikon classified a 35mm lens as being a Wide-Angle. The "C" means that the lens is single-coated: this is really just a marketing designation, since *all* post-war Nikkor lenses were coated. In the early days, it was worth while drawing this to the customer's attention; but, by 1957-58, when everybody else's lenses were coated too, the "C" suffix was dropped. It was reinstated for SLR lenses in about 1970 when multicoating started to come in; and dropped again in 1977 or so when everybody else's lenses were multicoated.

1:2.5 f=3.5cm: This 35mm f/2.5 lens was launched in September 1952 and remained in production until 1962 or thereabouts. Since your lens has the "C" suffix, it was made no later than 1958. The first lenses were made of chrome-plated brass; these were beautifully durable but rather heavy, so, in July 1956, Nikon changed to using black-painted aluminium for the Nikon-bayonet lenses. I don't think this helps to date your lens, however, because I think Nikon continued to make all Leica-thread lenses out of chrome-plated brass. You do have a chrome-plated lens, don't you, Phil?

When this lens was launched by Nikon, the 35mm lens available from Leitz was the f/3.5 Summaron. Both lenses were traditional double-Gauss designs, but the Nikkor was a full stop faster. This made it more attractive for photojournalists, many of whom regarded 35mm as their standard focal length (and not a wide-angle at all) and needed all the speed they could get. For some reason, Leitz allowed Nikon a 6-year start before introducing a 35mm f/2.8 Summaron in 1958. By 1962-63, when both lenses ceased production Nikon had sold 28,000 lenses and Leitz had sold 5,200. Presumably the original owner of your camera, Phil, was one of those not prepared to wait until Leitz brought out a fast 35mm lens.

no.262378: This serial number comes from the same range as the Nikon-bayonet lenses, 243000 to 271200, so I'm going to assume that serial numbers for Leica-thread lenses came from the same range as the current bayonet batch. Starting at 259000 in July 1956 and proceeding at a rate of 250 lenses a month, means that your lens was made in August 1957. This sounds about right, but I must stress that it's only a back-of-an-envelope calculation.

If you want to find out more about your lens, may I recommend the Nikon Rangefinder mailing list at

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NikonRF

(I find it's easiest to join Yahoo! Groups to handle lists like this). It's not a busy list -- a couple of posts a week or so -- but has considerable pooled expertise and is a very civilized discussion group.

Later,

Dr Owl

-- John Owlett (owl@postmaster.co.uk), September 22, 2001.


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