TenEleven
Well-known
Upon thinking about this again I am not 100% sure these are black market.
These lenses may very well be immediate post-war lenses when any materials and working tools must have been incredibly scarce.
Not enough black paint for the name ring, or perhaps the oven that was used to bake that paint was taken or destroyed, and basically making do with whatever materials were on hand - so junkers, experiments and parts that previously failed QA got repurposed. The nickel plated mount may very well be an experiment before they transitioned fully into the new chromed shape, etc.
The aperture gripper is too shallow and has too many ridges, yes - but once again this may have been a previously failed part lying around in some bin. For example you could imagine the ridges had cracked or the tool had slipped during machining. Then upon re-purposing it to make these "Frankensteins" the solution was to cut the cracked/failed bit off and make a shallower grip.
These lenses may very well be immediate post-war lenses when any materials and working tools must have been incredibly scarce.
Not enough black paint for the name ring, or perhaps the oven that was used to bake that paint was taken or destroyed, and basically making do with whatever materials were on hand - so junkers, experiments and parts that previously failed QA got repurposed. The nickel plated mount may very well be an experiment before they transitioned fully into the new chromed shape, etc.
The aperture gripper is too shallow and has too many ridges, yes - but once again this may have been a previously failed part lying around in some bin. For example you could imagine the ridges had cracked or the tool had slipped during machining. Then upon re-purposing it to make these "Frankensteins" the solution was to cut the cracked/failed bit off and make a shallower grip.
Räuber
Well-known
@TenEleven
I'm not convinced that we see spare-parts-emergency-production from CZJ here. There are to many funky things here in play. I will only concentrate me on the lens from the Japan shop.
For me it shows all the signs of a German black market lens. The creators did not know the right serials and machined a very good look alike but in the end give it away with details like the grippers. I think they definitely had access to spare parts like those lens blocks and the outer body shell. But they needed to build their own parts too like the aperture rings. And they needed to engrave them by themself but without the CZJ font templates.
It is an interesting mystery and I can definitely see the appeal of the theory that Zeiss Oberkochen is behind those black market fakes. It would help to know what parts are made by CZJ and what not. If all of those parts are not made by CZJ then it would even rule out some master black market workers. This glass inside the lens needs to be grinded and glued. If you are able to forge your own lens blocks you are one of the big ones, like Meyer Görlitz, Zeiss Oberkochen or Zeiss Ikon. And even to create the outer shell is not an easy feet. You need the right tools and engines and skills for this.
But then we talk about maybe up to 10.000 fakes floating around. Most of them differ quite significant from each other. Most look like assembled from some spare CZJ parts with added custom made missing parts. Even if we look to another mystery lens that shares the same origin (as I belive) the Sonnar 5,8cm f/1,5 the lenses differ from each other like nobody cared about the details. CZJ and Zeiss Oberkochen cared very much about the details. Even in war times when everything was falling apart the only churned out lenses with the proper engravings, proper grippers and proper name rings. The quality was sometimes a little sloppy but the details where always right. Not with those fakes. Some have a black dot as aperture mark, some a red dot, some a black line, some a black arrow, some a black dot with a line.
Sorry for the rant 😅
I'm not convinced that we see spare-parts-emergency-production from CZJ here. There are to many funky things here in play. I will only concentrate me on the lens from the Japan shop.
- the serial number is off. This lens has no valid CZJ serial number. Even in the midst of the disassembly CZJ did not loose track of the numbering of their lenses.
- the shallow grippers. As you already stated the grippers of the aperture ring are way to shallow, have the wrong number of groves and the outer sides are at a diagonal angle while they should be cut in a vertical angle. This ring is no spare part by any means since there are no CZJ lenses of this time with that kind of aperture ring and grippers. I would even go that far to say that this kind of grippers is even more difficult to machine than the original ones.
- The font of the serial number is wrong too. If you look at the zeros they look like zeros from Zeiss Oberkochen or KZM but not like the rounded zeros of CZJ. Especially this is an indication for me that this lens is not made by CZJ. CZJ did not change the templates they used for their engravings after WWII. The engravings are very consistent when it comes to CZJ, especially when it comes to the name ring.
For me it shows all the signs of a German black market lens. The creators did not know the right serials and machined a very good look alike but in the end give it away with details like the grippers. I think they definitely had access to spare parts like those lens blocks and the outer body shell. But they needed to build their own parts too like the aperture rings. And they needed to engrave them by themself but without the CZJ font templates.
It is an interesting mystery and I can definitely see the appeal of the theory that Zeiss Oberkochen is behind those black market fakes. It would help to know what parts are made by CZJ and what not. If all of those parts are not made by CZJ then it would even rule out some master black market workers. This glass inside the lens needs to be grinded and glued. If you are able to forge your own lens blocks you are one of the big ones, like Meyer Görlitz, Zeiss Oberkochen or Zeiss Ikon. And even to create the outer shell is not an easy feet. You need the right tools and engines and skills for this.
But then we talk about maybe up to 10.000 fakes floating around. Most of them differ quite significant from each other. Most look like assembled from some spare CZJ parts with added custom made missing parts. Even if we look to another mystery lens that shares the same origin (as I belive) the Sonnar 5,8cm f/1,5 the lenses differ from each other like nobody cared about the details. CZJ and Zeiss Oberkochen cared very much about the details. Even in war times when everything was falling apart the only churned out lenses with the proper engravings, proper grippers and proper name rings. The quality was sometimes a little sloppy but the details where always right. Not with those fakes. Some have a black dot as aperture mark, some a red dot, some a black line, some a black arrow, some a black dot with a line.
Sorry for the rant 😅