Noobie Question No. 7: VIDOM, FIKUS, SCNOO etc. Where did they get these names from?

[David.Boettcher]

I have looked in a couple of books. Rogliatti calls them "fascinating five letter codes" and describes how a LEICA 1 with an Elmar lens was a LEANE and if complete with leather case ETRUX it became LETTO but if the case was an ESNEL it became a LENEL instead. In each case the first two letters remained LE from the LEICA root, so it looks as if there probably was some logic to deriving these codes, at least in the beginning.

There also seems to have been some effort to make them pronounceable words in many cases, not just random jumbles of letters.

Rogliatti goes on to say that when the range reached an astonishing number of items, "Leitz really went wild over the names." Which they did, because not only is there an astonishing number of them, to match the number of items of course, but they are also a mixture of quirky, weird and curious. But no book I have looked in so far explains where they got them from or how they made them up.

So what was it: Did German thoroughness mean that there was a carefully defined way of generating the five letter code for each new item - or were they just having an insider laugh; each time a new item was introduced did they have a competition to see who could come up with the most outlandish name which still sounded just about plausible?

Regards - David

 

[rxmd]

Five-letter codes were a common way to code products in the pre-WW2 era; it facilitated placing orders by telegraph.

I don't think Leica had more of a logic behind this than any other manufacturer; it feels like they assigned them essentially at random, sometimes with a reference to other products, sometimes with German words, certainly with a bit of humour every now and then, but without any system.

 

[Roger Hicks]

Some are dead obvious: ELMAR (5 cm), EKURZ (3.5 cm, KURZ = short), ELANG (9cm, LANG = LONG), WINTU (angle finder, WINKEL = ANGLE). Others are compounds, such as NOOKY HESUM, close up device (NOOKY, no known origin) for HEktor SUMmar or SUMUS CHROM for a chrome Summar. VIDEO ('I see') in Latin was an early accessory finder. As the product range grew, names were further and further divorced from obvious roots.

The great advantages of such codes for ordering are that a 5-letter group can cover a far wider range off goods than numbers can (because there are 26 letters and only 10 numbers); that they're harder to screw up with transpositions, etc.; and that they're more memorable. I think an OTZFO is a 16464, for example.

Cheers,

R.

 

[batterytypehah!]

Anybody know where "Elmar" came from in the first place? Even at the time, it must have sounded a little odd. (It's an old-fashioned male first name which also happens to end in -ar like so many of the old lens designs.)

Trying to think of an English equivalent. Something like "hey, here's my newest lens design, I call it the Alistair."

 

[Pherdinand]

honestly, it all sounds like Ikea stuff to me 😀

 

[David.Boettcher]

Anybody know where "Elmar" came from in the first place? Even at the time, it must have sounded a little odd. (It's an old-fashioned male first name which also happens to end in -ar like so many of the old lens designs.)

Trying to think of an English equivalent. Something like "hey, here's my newest lens design, I call it the Alistair."

My understanding is that the first Leica lens, the Anastigmat was renamed, after certain patent restrictions had lapsed, the ELMAX for E Leitz and MAX Berek, the chief optical designer at Leitz. When it was redesigned with new glass to reduce the number of elements from 5 to 4 the new version was called the ELMAR.

Regards - David

 

[Roger Hicks]

My understanding is that the first Leica lens, the Anastigmat was renamed, after certain patent restrictions had lapsed, the ELMAX for E Leitz and MAX Berek, the chief optical designer at Leitz. When it was redesigned with new glass to reduce the number of elements from 5 to 4 the new version was called the ELMAR.

Regards - David

Dear David,

Indeed, that is my understanding too, and it is a first class illustration of how an initially crystal-clear name began to drift as new models were intoduced. The '-ar' or '-or' suffix was already well established, with (for example) Tessar, Dogmar, Dagor, so ELMAR was an easy and obvious code-name change.

Why five letters? Well, LEICA and the fact that it's probably easier to make up memorable and (sometimes) pronounceable 5-letter words than 4-letter.

Cheers,

R.

 

[David.Boettcher]

Hi Roger,

Thanks for that. Do you know what the "patent restrictions" were that caused Leitz to name the first few lenses Anastigmat? Rogliatti and Laney give the same story but don't explain who's patents they were.

Regards - David

 

[David Hughes]

My guess is that they were picked with a pin: and they survived for a lot longer than people think.

TUNHO

Regards, David

 

[Roger Hicks]

Hi Roger,

Thanks for that. Do you know what the "patent restrictions" were that caused Leitz to name the first few lenses Anastigmat? Rogliatti and Laney give the same story but don't explain who's patents they were.

Regards - David

Dear David,

No, I don't know what the 'patent restrictions' were and I'm not entirely convinced that they ever existed: flat errors are often perpetuated because they sound convincing. My own suspicion is that a (very slight) redesign of the Anastigmat (up to camera 300, approximately) gave them the opportunity to change the name to something much more distinctive: Anastigmat is, after all, a generic name. Then the Elmar was a cost-saving measure (4 glasses instead of 5). Allegedly, there were at least two designs of early Elmar (different curvatures and possibly glasses).

There are plenty who know far more than about this, but unless and until someone produces evidence of these 'patent restrictions' I can't help feeling that my version is likelier.

Cheers,

R.

 

[John Shriver]

Since the Elmar was a Tessar clone, perhaps they were waiting for the Tessar patent to expire? The Tessar was patented in 1902. On the other hand, the Elmar has the diaphragm in a different location in the lens than the Tessar, possibly to avoid the patent.

 

[David Hughes]

Also, I don't think that patents lasted many years in those days .

Didn't Zeiss have problems with patents in other fields* when Abbe and Scott were helping? The gap between many design, patent and production dates suggest they were hard pushed at times to manufacture and sell before the patents expired.

As an edit hours later: I seem to remember that one of their designs went from paper to reality in the lab but was only on sale for a year or two before the patent expired. Most of the delay caused by the problems making it in a factory in large quantities.

Regards, David

* ? Binoculars ?

 

[Sarcophilus Harrisii]

I have looked in a couple of books. Rogliatti calls them "fascinating five letter codes" and describes how a LEICA 1 with an Elmar lens was a LEANE and if complete with leather case ETRUX it became LETTO but if the case was an ESNEL it became a LENEL instead. In each case the first two letters remained LE from the LEICA root, so it looks as if there probably was some logic to deriving these codes, at least in the beginning.

There also seems to have been some effort to make them pronounceable words in many cases, not just random jumbles of letters.

Rogliatti goes on to say that when the range reached an astonishing number of items, "Leitz really went wild over the names." Which they did, because not only is there an astonishing number of them, to match the number of items of course, but they are also a mixture of quirky, weird and curious. But no book I have looked in so far explains where they got them from or how they made them up.

So what was it: Did German thoroughness mean that there was a carefully defined way of generating the five letter code for each new item - or were they just having an insider laugh; each time a new item was introduced did they have a competition to see who could come up with the most outlandish name which still sounded just about plausible?

Regards - David

Thank you for asking this.
As someone who hasn't done the Leica trip (yet, anyway), this stuff doesn't come under the heading of 'essential information' for me, but more than once I have pondered it myself, to no good end.

Is there a secret handshake, or some other sign, I need to learn, now I've been clued up about this stuff?
Regards,
Brett

 

[Pete Boyd]

Perhaps not patents, but trademarks is a more appropriate explanation for ELMAR, ELMARIT etc. For example 3Com have had a trademark on using the numbers 5 and 9 in their computer networking products, so they have had names like 3C509, then 3C905. I'm just guessing but it seems plausible.

 

[shadowfox]

honestly, it all sounds like Ikea stuff to me 😀

Bwahahaha...
Exactly what I thought.

 

[Muggins]

Yesterday, I think, I observed someone here christen an imaginary Leica "must-have" accessory the SCROOU. OK, it's a letter too long, but I thought it was rather a neat piece of alliteration.

Me, I like a bit of NOOKY. :angel:

Adrian

 

[Roger Hicks]

Since the Elmar was a Tessar clone, perhaps they were waiting for the Tessar patent to expire? The Tessar was patented in 1902. On the other hand, the Elmar has the diaphragm in a different location in the lens than the Tessar, possibly to avoid the patent.

Dear John,

Well, Leica would say different, but in any case, the Anastigmat and Elmax were 5-glass and therefore very different from any Tessars. Besides, it would be an odd patent that allowed you to sell the same thing under a different name.

Cheers,

R.

 

[John Shriver]

What I'm suggesting is that they made the Anastigmat (which was not a Tessar clone) until the patent expired on the Elmar (which is somewhat of a Tessar clone).

 

[David Hughes]

Since the Elmar was a Tessar clone, perhaps they were waiting for the Tessar patent to expire? The Tessar was patented in 1902. On the other hand, the Elmar has the diaphragm in a different location in the lens than the Tessar, possibly to avoid the patent.

The Tessar is well known but others had designed similar objectives. You could argue that they were triplet clones.

Trouble is, we'll never know for certain. At Zeiss they could have been thinking about three or four versions of the Tessar and decided to patent the one that was easiest to make. Or their lawyers could have had a say in it...

Regards, David

 

[David Hughes]

Perhaps not patents, but trademarks is a more appropriate explanation for ELMAR, ELMARIT etc. For example 3Com have had a trademark on using the numbers 5 and 9 in their computer networking products, so they have had names like 3C509, then 3C905. I'm just guessing but it seems plausible.

Looking at lists of code words I'm struck by the randomness of them.

For example, Elkin is followed by Elmar and further down the page Elruu is followed by Emoox. Every now and again 3 or 4 will follow a sort of sequence, look at cases f'instance, and then break off completely.

There may have been a negative logic; meaning rude words and negative ones would be left out and I doubt if they would chose "Zeiss" for one of the codes.

As for being pronouncable, how about the popular FBXOO - which they must have sold by the thousand to agents...

I'm sticking to my theory that they were more or less random.

Regards, David