Another irregular production Sonnar

dexdog said:
That may be a while, already dreading the thought of replacing the iris leaves. The serial number of 2877726 is strange as Rauber pointed out, is not found in Thiele's book of CZJ serials. The engraving on the name ring does not look like typical CZJ work.
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I have another argument that suggests this latest lens was made of parts salvaged from the rejects bin at a Zeiss factory. I think that the Contax mount on the lens is out of spec. Very difficult to mount the lens on the Contax IIIa it was attached to, also difficult to mount and remove from my Amedeo adapter made for Sony E-mount. I had to use a nylon punch and rawhide mallet to separate the lens from the adapter! By way of contrast, the IIIa and Amedeo adapter fit a 1937 CZJ, a 1951 Z-O and a 1955 J-3 in Kiev mount without issue. Losing this IIIa would not be a problem given that it is kinda beat up and I have a couple really nice working examples already; the Amedeo adapters on the other hand work great but are not cheap.
 
Just tried on a Z-O, a pre-WW2 Contax and a 1955 J-3. The lower part of the fixture for the optical block will not fit into any of the above lens mounts. I measured the fixture itself, it is about 0.8mm bigger in diameter than a "normal" lens. I think that the brass color that you see in the lens mount in post #119 of this thread represents an area where the mount was bored out to allow the optical fixture to fit.

Good thing I bought this lens as a curiousity/oddball/one-off and not as something I actually intended to use.
 
Sorry, that I did not noticed the obvious. This lens reminds me a lot of my J-8k. The letters, the filter rim and name ring is different though. But the Contax mount part looks a lot like from a J-8k that was altered to look like this lens. The 9 aperture blades are a sign this is a f2 Sonnar too.

The light blue coating is a thing that I have noticed with a bunch of Sonnar 5cm f2 lenses. You can find this on some Sonnars before Zeiss applied its T coating. Some claim this is a prototype coating. I don‘t know.
 
dexdog said:
This is an oddball lens. Spacer to the right of the name ring holds front lens in position.

Rear lens group is 23.18mm diameter, front lens element is 30.17mm diameter
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What's interesting is that the lens element shapes seem to correspond to a typical f2 pre-war Sonnar.
Which of course is correct for the serial number given, since they did not change the lens shapes and mounting until after the war, I think. Which would make this lens indeed a sort of parts salvage, most likely assembled privately from parts.

See the rear doublet below:
pre_war_sonnar_f2_2.jpg
 
Considering that the glass in this lens is pretty good, I am wondering whether I could extract the lens elements and put the in another lens body. Would a rigid or collapsible pre-WW2 Contax work? Or even an early J8?
 
dexdog said:
Considering that the glass in this lens is pretty good, I am wondering whether I could extract the lens elements and put the in another lens body. Would a rigid or collapsible pre-WW2 Contax work? Or even an early J8?
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Theoretically they should both work. An early J8 may also work.

However practically speaking, I think you will find it very difficult to extract the glass from the brass mounts in a pre-war collapsible or rigid lens without destroying the brass mounts. Its a press fit and some sort of bond. They're in there pretty good! I managed it once for one group and that experience already cost me one lens group which I ruined - so I am not keen on repeating it.

IMG_8181 copy.jpgIMG_8179 copy.jpg

With the Jupiter-8 the rear element is also mounted in a brass or aluminum tube. Two two front groups may however be just "drop in" depending on the vintage of the lens. Maybe very late Jupiter-8s got rid of the case for the rear doublet as well? I know that's the case for the Jupiter-3 at least...
 
Another odd looking lens, has a serial number similar to the lens that Rauber first highlighted in post 100 of this thread that I bought. I think that the one currently on eBay is 2877746 (hard to tell from pics), while the weird salvaged 5cm/f2 in Contax mount that I have is 2877726. Another salvage job? This one might acctually be f1.5 given the size of the front element. Different arrangement of screws on LTM body.

www.ebay.com

5mm f1.5 Sonnar LTM Carl Zeiss Lens | eBay

This 50mm f1.5 Sonnar Carl Zeiss lens is in great condition for its age. The focus and aperture rings are smooth. This lens will be a great lens to add.
www.ebay.com
 
www.ebay.de

Zeiss Leica M39 Sonnar 8,5cm f2 T 2851295 jy055* | eBay

Entdecken Sie Zeiss Leica M39 Sonnar 8,5cm f2 T 2851295 jy055* in der groÃen Auswahl bei eBay. Kostenlose Lieferung für viele Artikel!
www.ebay.de

Here is an example of a Sonnar 8,5cm f2 new on Ebay. Not only 5cm Sonnars were target of copies. The engraved numbers are all fake. Even the name ring is not from CZJ. Interesting is the black bottom of the lens and the huge screws. We already have seen such details in the Sonnar 5,8cm examples. The Sonnar 5cm that @dexdog posted is the same. It has a lot of similarities with some Sonnar 5,8cm copies. For me the case is clear. It is the same manufacturer. All of those lenses might be post-war black market lenses.

What puzzles me most is how similar all of those copies look like. Sure they look like if they were made by Carl Zeiss Jena. But that was to be expected because they have to look like the original Sonnar. But they look like coming from the same branch to me. But the amount is huge. You find Sonnar 5cm f/1.5, Sonnar 5,8cm / 6cm f/1.5 and Sonnar 8,5cm f2 from this manufacturer. If there were a lot of different sources I would expect some minor details to change a lot. Especially the engraving would change between a lot of those copies. But it isn't. This was no shack behind a bombed living house. It was no solitary craftsmen fixing some dumped parts on a bench in a cellar. My gut feeling is this was a factory.
 
Räuber said:
www.ebay.de

Zeiss Leica M39 Sonnar 8,5cm f2 T 2851295 jy055* | eBay

Entdecken Sie Zeiss Leica M39 Sonnar 8,5cm f2 T 2851295 jy055* in der groÃen Auswahl bei eBay. Kostenlose Lieferung für viele Artikel!
www.ebay.de

Here is an example of a Sonnar 8,5cm f2 new on Ebay. Not only 5cm Sonnars were target of copies. The engraved numbers are all fake. Even the name ring is not from CZJ. Interesting is the black bottom of the lens and the huge screws. We already have seen such details in the Sonnar 5,8cm examples. The Sonnar 5cm that @dexdog posted is the same. It has a lot of similarities with some Sonnar 5,8cm copies. For me the case is clear. It is the same manufacturer. All of those lenses might be post-war black market lenses.

What puzzles me most is how similar all of those copies look like. Sure they look like if they were made by Carl Zeiss Jena. But that was to be expected because they have to look like the original Sonnar. But they look like coming from the same branch to me. But the amount is huge. You find Sonnar 5cm f/1.5, Sonnar 5,8cm / 6cm f/1.5 and Sonnar 8,5cm f2 from this manufacturer. If there were a lot of different sources I would expect some minor details to change a lot. Especially the engraving would change between a lot of those copies. But it isn't. This was no shack behind a bombed living house. It was no solitary craftsmen fixing some dumped parts on a bench in a cellar. My gut feeling is this was a factory.
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Rauber, that lens is interesting. Serial number shows up in Thiele's book as part of a batch completed in February 1946 in Contax mount. Looks like someone simply bolted an LTM mount with focus mechanism on the bottom. I have a couple of CZJ 13.5cm Sonnars originally made in Exacta mount (according to Thiele) that have uncoupled Contax mounts bolted on in a similar fashion.
 
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It is a rare case that they got the serial right. But I have multiple examples where the name ring shows the original engravings from CZJ but the body is not finished by Zeiss or the Soviets. The case that the name ring has valid serial but was not engraved by Zeiss is rare indeed.

Here is one example: serial 2800280 (originally R-Sonnar 5cm f1,5)

2800280f.jpeg

Compare the numbers of the aperture scale, the distance scale and even the serial with the Sonnar 8,5cm example. Look for the 4. The best indicators are the 3, 4 and 7 and 0. Compare those numbers to CZJ lenses and you will see the manipulation. As I stated in the past: CZJ never used a (red) dot as an aperture mark on their 5cm f/1.5 lenses.

Unfortunately the font type on Sonnar 13,5cm and 8,5cm is a little different at the distance scale. It is more difficult to see what is an authentic Sonnar 13,5cm or 8,5cm lens. Especially the 8,5cm is tricky. I still need more authentic examples of this lens.
 
My R-Sonnar has 2 different styles for the number 4 on the same lens! Difference in engraving aside, this lens is a very good performer. Aside from some dust and dog hair on the front lens element that I need to blast off with compressed air.


 
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I think this is a case where an R-Sonnar was transplanted into a LTM body. You see the R-Sonnar has no aperture blades nor aperture ring. So it mades totally sense that the aperture ring has the wrong engraving. It was added to get this lens block into the LTM body.

The name ring is authentic.
The aperture ring is engraved by a third party.
the LTM body is authentic.

Quite strange since the person that transplanted it needed access to an authentic spare CZJ LTM body. They got their hands on a R-Sonnar (that are quite rare) and needed to add aperture mechanism and ring. If this was done by CZJ itself I would not question that this done after the war. But since the aperture ring has the wrong numbers on it who did it and how got he all the parts together.

I do not question the quality of the lens or the final body. I know how good those post-war LTM Sonnars are. I consider myself lucky to own one.

To poor some oil into the fire. 😈 I will mention another thing. Compare those number fonts from all the 5,8cm Sonnars, the fake Sonnar I posted before or the fake aperture ring with the engraved numbers of a post-war Zeiss-Opton Sonnar. You can't tell the difference. Compare it with the number font of post-war Meyer Görlitz lenses. You can't tell the difference. Compare it with the number font of post-war Leitz lenses. You can't tell the difference.

Now you know what is the real struggle to find the originator of those fake lenses.
 
Personally, I enjoy the "fake" lenses. They are historic, and if in good condition produce good images. I agree that this lens was likely hacked into an authentic CZJ LTM mount by some talented technician with access to quality machine tools. One can observe differences in the machining finish between the aperture ring and other parts of the lens barrel. The difference in this case is that the finshed aperture ring was not polished to remove the evidence of the last machining work
 
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I would add that the 280 series Sonnar has 6 slots cut into the ears, rather than the 5 cut into my pristine 218 series Sonnar 5cm f1.5 which has only 5. The 6 slots also generally indicates a transition lens.
Series 218 Sonnar ears

Series 280 Sonnar ears
 
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