The Mandler 35mm f2

[Duofold RF]

You seem to have been driven into an awful emotional tizzy over this. There is an irony here, seeing a guy who has posted multiple times railing against fakes and using ARTIFICIAL intelligence to defend his position. People don't buy these lenses to fool themselves or anyone else. They're bought by real photographers who like the image quality but have been priced out of the original, which has been discontinued for 30 years.

Voigtländer, TTArtisan, and Thypoch deliver great quality for the money. LLL, on the other hand, charges a big premium mainly for that ‘Leica replica’ aesthetic.
My two cents — like it or leave it.

 

[Duofold RF]

I am old enough to remember when anything made it Japan was assumed to be of lower quality if not outright junk. That, obviously, changed over the past 70+ years. I wonder if we're in the same mindset with items made in China?
I have two of the LLL lenses - both M mount - and enjoy using them. So far, they have held up well and I like the smaller size, similar to early rangefinder lenses. Has anyone seen or used the new Mandler lens?

Made in China Lenses are not all junk, The Artisans and Thypoch lenses are excellent quality.

 

[Duofold RF]

LLL has absolutely made innovations. They made the 8element 35mm summicron into a collapsible LTM lens……
And before anyone comes again with this fake Rolex nonsense. I also have an Original 8element - actually the very rare original LTM version, too.
However I now prefer the smaller and lighter collapsible - it's cheaper and…….People who buy gear so that others can see that they have a "proper" Leica instead of shooting pictures need their heads checked.

Whether the LLL collapsible Summicron 35mm is truly innovative or not depends on how you look at it.
It basically follows the collapsible Elmer lens design. For a compact 35mm lens, do you really need a collapsible mount? The aperture ring/index is placed on the lens hood - the lens plus hood is not that small compared to rigid form, and the sloping focus cam used on different LTM bodies is notoriously unforgiving — even a tiny positioning error can cause misfocus at the film plane. I suspect that’s exactly why LLL only made one production run and then quietly dropped it.
I’d encourage you to pull out your real first-version Leica Summicron 35mm f/2 and actually shoot with it, otherwise you’re just the temporary caretaker, and it’ll end up being donated to Goodwill by your kids. After all these lens were not that expensive. I bought all four versions of the Summicron 35mm f/2 (V1–V4) back in the day for only $500–$700 each.