how to spot a fake sonnar?

Latente · Joined: 12 Jan 2010 Posts: 17

this is the sonnar that i fond on my Kiev4 camera bought on ebay

it's full of scratch and fungus, so before spend 50� for cleaning it i need to know if is real or if is a jupiter-8.

the lens don't have coating.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/e-coli/3908079208/

scsambrook · Expire: 2011-11-18

I'm not a Zeiss expert, but your picture seems to show the serial number as "Nr.20400", which I think is far too low for any Contax lens. No doubt other forum members will give you more positive information.

ludoo · Expire: 2011-12-05

Best place where to ask this question would be the Zeiss & Zeiss Ikon Collectors Group.

Ciao Latente Smile

exaklaus · Expire: 2011-12-02

Looks like a fake to me! Let it go.

Klaus

Orio · Expire: 2012-12-04

I'm not an expert but the serial number does not look much Jena to me.

Sevo · Expire: 2012-12-03

The number was not completed - bezels were pre engraved, and the last three or four digits filled by the assembly line.

It might be one of the Kiev Sonnars made from Jena parts, or a post war home-assembled lens (these were made by former Zeiss employees from parts stolen from the factory and/or salvaged from bombed sites, and sold on the black market). Or it could even be a factory reject rescued from the scrap bin.

Either might explain a incomplete serial and missing coating. In any case, nothing like that happened in pre war production, so you can safely exclude that it is a high value pre war uncoated Sonnar - and the value of a beater post war coated Sonnar with missing coating and other assembly flaws might be lower than that of a nice Jupiter. Personally I'd leave it as is (its history is more exciting than its quality) and pick up a clean Jupiter rather than have it cleaned.

I don't believe in a fake - there is not really a point in faking a flawed lens, it would be much harder and less profitable to fake than a perfect one (it can't be easy to locate a Jupiter with missing coating).

scsambrook · Expire: 2011-11-18

Thanks to Sevo for that educational info - I just found http://home.sprynet.com/~stspring/Zeiss%20Ikon.html
which suggests that such an uncompleted serial would date from 1937.

Sevo · Expire: 2012-12-03

It is rather unlikely that the lens left Zeiss in that state in 1937. In regular days, anything like that would hardly have passed final QC.

It might be a third party repair job (Zeiss themselves would have applied the number when replacing the bezel). But I think the black market lens hypothesis is most likely - in the immediate post WWII days, many employees sustained themselves by home assembling equipment from parts "organized" at Zeiss, and might have ransacked old spare parts like uncoated glass and laid aside back-dated bezels.