drmatthes
Zeiss Addict
Hello to the community,
as a youngster to this very special forum, I am coming up with a marginal problem.
I own a Contax II with a Biogon 1:2,8 / 3,5 cm Jena T #2673014, also marked on the shaft (the funny piece going back some three cm into the camera body) #673014 (see pictures).
When was this one produced?
As far as I understand, Carl Zeiss Jena introduced lens coating (T) some time in 1935, but not covering the whole production, and after 1939 the coating process was declared "eyes only" and attached to military purposes, mainly with the German marines, so that very few (if any) coated lenses reached the wartime civilian market. On the other hand, the serial number of the lens points to the ominous year of 1940 (serial numbers of 1939 ending with #2651211, and 1941 starting with #2678326 (serial numbers for 1940 itself have obviously been lost).
So, is this one wartime or post-war? (Material is brass, not aluminium).
It's not of REAL impotance to me, but it's to do a bit with family history. Great-Grand-Aunt Hanna used to own a Contax that was "found" by American troops on April 11, 1944, and made for the U.S. (the camera, not the aunt), so I keep getting involved with the stuff not only for the beauty of the cameras.
Hey you people in the U.S., no leg-pulling, my folks have done things unspeakably worse than that, a shame that never can be resolved or reconciliated, and that's a different story. Anybody thought of what might have been photographed with these vintage cameras?
Apart from that: Any ideas on the lens?
Thanx!
as a youngster to this very special forum, I am coming up with a marginal problem.
I own a Contax II with a Biogon 1:2,8 / 3,5 cm Jena T #2673014, also marked on the shaft (the funny piece going back some three cm into the camera body) #673014 (see pictures).
When was this one produced?
As far as I understand, Carl Zeiss Jena introduced lens coating (T) some time in 1935, but not covering the whole production, and after 1939 the coating process was declared "eyes only" and attached to military purposes, mainly with the German marines, so that very few (if any) coated lenses reached the wartime civilian market. On the other hand, the serial number of the lens points to the ominous year of 1940 (serial numbers of 1939 ending with #2651211, and 1941 starting with #2678326 (serial numbers for 1940 itself have obviously been lost).
So, is this one wartime or post-war? (Material is brass, not aluminium).
It's not of REAL impotance to me, but it's to do a bit with family history. Great-Grand-Aunt Hanna used to own a Contax that was "found" by American troops on April 11, 1944, and made for the U.S. (the camera, not the aunt), so I keep getting involved with the stuff not only for the beauty of the cameras.
Hey you people in the U.S., no leg-pulling, my folks have done things unspeakably worse than that, a shame that never can be resolved or reconciliated, and that's a different story. Anybody thought of what might have been photographed with these vintage cameras?
Apart from that: Any ideas on the lens?
Thanx!
