3 K 50/2 in LTM circa 1949?

I doubt that it could be made from a Kiev mount lens. I've never seen or heard of 3k before, but OTOH, there was a lot of wierdness going on in Soviet optics in the day's after they snagged Zeiss. The ad claims it was made by KMZ, which actually makes some sense... My guess is that it's Soviet production of wartime bits produced at Jena. I don't know if the wartime Sonnars in LTM were made in collapsible or not, but even if not, whose to say the parts for a number of prototypes didn't exist?

It also wouldn't surprise me if the lens was just too complex (or viewed that way) to be made with Soviet QC (which was at it's best then, but I digress...).

If I had the coin to spare, I'd snag it just out of curiosity. If it worked, so much the better - be a fun lens, for giggles if nothing else, to hang on the CL... 😱

Edit: The fact that the seller takes paypal inclines me to think that, at the least, _he_ believes what he writes. Just that little bit less likely to be an outright scam from him.

William
 
Lens appears to be authentic. Such were supplied as the f/2 accessory lens for the Zorki.

FWIW, the f/2 and f/1,5 lenses were not named Jupiter-8 and Jupiter-3, respectively, when they were first made. I have a Zorki instruction booklet from 1950 where the 50mm f/2 and f/1,5 lenses were simply identified as "ZK" lenses. The illustration for the lens identified as "ZK50/2" shows a lens similar to that seen in the auction.

See the attached scans from the instruction booklets below.

The later editions of the Zorki instruction booklet which had the same worded instructions and illustrations however had the lenses identified as "Jupiter". It's curious to note that the 1950 instruction booklet described the Zorki as a "FED-type" camera...and not a Leica type??? 😀
 
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