Is it a real CZ Jena?

[horvlas]

Hello. What do you think about this lens? Is it a real CZ Jena Biotar? The text is not the common, and the serial no. also... And hasn't got the text: "Biotar".

[horvlas]

And here is the picture:

[no-X]

... and the red rhomb?!

[ManualFocus-G]

And on a Zenit?!

[Attila]

it's fake.

[Sevo]

Why?

If so, it would have to be a old fake that has actually been heavily used - it is quite unlikely that anybody would fake a lens without even making an attempt to clean the glass.

Ones without "Biotar" on the ring certainly do exist - I had one in Exakta mount, dating from around 1950 (which I got for something like 10 DM from the junk shelf of a usually expensive collectors store, so late nineties value for SLR Biotars was hardly worth a fake). Might be a Exakta specific trademark issue, I've seen plenty of unnamed Zeiss lenses for them - at that time, Ihagee was still Dutch owned, so that the owners would have been within easier reach of the Oberkochen lawyers. But if that was a Exakta phenomenon, that lens would be adapted or converted to M42, which should have left traces.

One more peculiarity is that the serial on this one is no Zeiss serial - in the years of Biotar production these were in the two to six million range.

That might just possibly be due to it being a post-war Biotar assembled from pre-war Zeiss stock, reusing a scrap front ring (due to lack of regular ones) where engraving the serial had been aborted when the engraver noticed his error or omission on the first digit (which should have been 2 or 3). It is unlikely that similar errors would have made it into regular production later on.

More likely is that it is a (sixties, assuming that the first digit on the serial is right) lens destined for export to the West, where the front was originally covered with another screw-over "Jena" or "CZJ" branded bezel, so that front rings with incomplete engraving might have been reused in that supposedly hidden place.

Of course, it could also be a repair job made with a off-series, incompletely pre-engraved or late (CZJ started a new serial numbering scheme in the seventies) spare part - few companies bothered about properly re-serializing spares to the original number.

Sevo

[no-X]

Couldn't it be something like my Pancolar? Made by other factory under Zeiss licence?

[Attila]

I think nobody get license from Carl Zeiss Jena in that years. I believe this is same case than Russians made fake Leica from their cameras.If something readable with Leica, Nikkor or Carl Zeiss that is not means automatically genuine items. If you see Biotars from any years they are not looking like this.

[Farside]

[Attila]

[no-X]

How many blades does it have? Helios lenses had 8 or 13, while Biotar lenses had 10, 12 or 17. I think if this is a Helios-based fake lens, nobody at that time would care about correct number of blades (particularly if the lettering and SN is completely "unzeissish").

[Sevo]

I count probably ten - certainly not less than nine (five on the left are clearly identifiable, and that leaves at least four to the right).

Sevo

[Poolhall]

Looks like 10 blades to me but not easy to see, maybe its a rebuild from 2 or 3 damaged lenses?

[no-X]

Another lens from the same source: notice "C.Z." isntead of "Carl Zeiss", similar serial number and the red diamond:

[A G Photography]

Maybe I'm wrong but at the date that lens was built it shouldn't still exist the Pentacon conglomerate (founded in 1964).

[Sevo]

Most of the Dresden and Thüringen camera industry had come under VEB Zeiss control by the early fifties, and the conglomerate frequently changed names as they took over camera and lens makers in other regions - VEB Zeiss Ikon, VEB Kamera- und Kinowerke and finally VEB Pentacon, nine years after Pentacon had become their major trade mark.

It is not likely that that lens is from the age of Pentacon proper - its design is fifties or earlier, and I am not aware of any 35mm lenses which were continued in relatively ancient shape for that long.

Sevo

[no-X]

Speaking of lenses, I take Meyer and Pentacon as a synonym. Anyway, my point is that the lens is not a fake, but a German product

[Sevo]

[A G Photography]

[estudleon]

[no-X]

[Spotmatic]

[estudleon]

[Poolhall]

Lydith 30mm is nice too, in both Meyer and Pentacon

[Sevo]

I've done a couple of interviews with former Bentzin and Goltz&Breutmann employees (or their children) for my research on large format SLRs. As far as the perceived chain of events from their (highly subjective) perspective went, Bentzin was forcibly merged with Meyer into a VEB early on, and relegated from the maker of the Primar Reflex series (essentially the blueprint for the first Hasselblad, and by all accounts superior to the KW/Zeiss Praktisix) into a lens maker, and finally Meyer was forcibly merged into Pentacon and further reduced to a assembly plant for lesser Pentacon lenses, mostly old Zeiss designs, to increase the insult. YMMV as to the truth behind it - the region around Görlitz was battle zone between Prussia, Austria and Saxonia for ages, so there is a certain spirit of disgruntledness native to these parts, and the general post-GDR self-apology of having been forced into any stupid decision by the commies is even more noticeable there than elsewhere...

But the image of Zeiss among the competitors never was too good - they already started out as a much-envied early case of state-funded research privatized rather than put in the public domain. And their origin gave them a near-monopolistic control on new glass types and later a tax-exempt status as a foundation, while they nonetheless acted like a aggressive trust on the market, tieing their glass and lens customers into dependencies, eventually entering into competition with them or taking them over.

The mergers of considerable parts of the optical industry with Zeiss in the economic crises of the twenties and early thirties did not improve the climate - at least part of the merged companies were (or at least felt) more profitable than Zeiss, and considered themselves sacrificed for the benefit of Zeiss, who eliminated much competition in the process while picking up competence in the field of small camera and movie technology as well as fast lenses.

The relationship with Meyer seems to have been particularily strained as a consequence of the relations between Zeiss, Paul Rudolph (the Tessar and Planar inventor) and Meyer. Zeiss had laid off Paul Rudolph into retirement after WWI, and he went on to Meyer with the Plasmat design which Zeiss had originally rejected - after that proved to be a success, Zeiss hired him back and had him produce a series of related, competing designs, which does not seem to have pleased Meyer.

Sevo