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Preset Soligor 135 and serial number.
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PostPosted: Sun Aug 22, 2021 6:59 pm    Post subject: Preset Soligor 135 and serial number. Reply with quote

Hi,
I managed to purchase (and probably saved it from being a donor) this little Soligor 135 f3.5 the other day:



I was trying to find some info about it but after googling, binging and duckduckgoing for a bit I think I've hit a wall. Can't find literally anything about the "M"+{4-digit} serial numbers other than "yeah, I think there were some, probably Miranda". There's an Apotelyt compendium about Soligor SNs but there's nothing that could help in my case.
Any ideas on how to decipher the following serial number?



PostPosted: Sun Aug 22, 2021 8:52 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

In this thread: http://forum.mflenses.com/h-code-lenses-t42233,start,25.html barnaby suggests this:

barnaby wrote:
He also mentions that Tokyo Koki used a lot of different export agents in the early years, as did most small Japanese makers who did not have their own export departments. This I believe may hold the key to why different companies had the same letters at the start of their serial numbers. I did ask Charles but he was unsure why Soligor, Hanimex and others shared the letter H in their serial numbers.

I am aware that there was also a letter M used by different companies and no doubt others letters or sets of letters, and my thoughts now are that each letter refers to an export agent where as pairs of letters are the first name/surname/company name of the company/person placing the order directly.


So the chain would be something along the lines of:
Manufacturer (Tokina, etc.) -> Export Agent "H" or "M" -> Reseller (Hanimex, Lentar, Soligor, etc.) -> Customer

Regards, C.


PostPosted: Sun Aug 22, 2021 9:10 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

The Soligors with a prefix letter seem to be a bit of a mystery. I've got nearly 30 Soligors and just one with an M 16**** serial number ( and 1 with T and 3 with H ) I'm thinking my lens is either Komine based on the 6 as first in the number, or Tokina based on it's similarity to other other early Tokina, and Soligors and Vivitars identified as Tokina according to the wideley accepted 'best lists'

It is confusing, and despite the unparralled collective knowledge of this forum we haven't established a list with any certainty. My M 16**** lens is a later 135 / 2.8 and looks nothing like the Komine of the era, and more like a Tokina - but the numbers say something different.

My thoughts are that the letter prefix might just be a sort code system used at a Soligor central distribution center but applied by the manufacturer of the lens (of which there are many ) to send batches of lenses to the correct international distributors?

Also, the brand names of Hanimex, Lentar and others are the names that appear on the lens, I have had identical lenses branded as Soligor and Hanimex, but with serial numbers that only the Soligor corresponds to the lists. Sometimes the Soligor Miranda names are together on a lens, but personally I've not seen the Soligor name with any other.


PostPosted: Tue Aug 24, 2021 12:32 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

connloyalist wrote:

So the chain would be something along the lines of:
Manufacturer (Tokina, etc.) -> Export Agent "H" or "M" -> Reseller (Hanimex, Lentar, Soligor, etc.) -> Customer


Lloydy wrote:
My thoughts are that the letter prefix might just be a sort code system used at a Soligor central distribution center but applied by the manufacturer of the lens (of which there are many ) to send batches of lenses to the correct international distributors?



I was digging though the Web (again) yesterday and I thought that the explanation for different brands and same S/N prefixes can actually be as simple as reselling the lenses and rebranding them while leaving the original serial number:
E.g. Hanimex has too many lenses and Soligor ordered too few and already sold out. They're buying some from Hanimex and replacing the front ring with a new brand tag but the original number stays to prevent potential duplicates. As a result Soligor with "H" prefix is born.

Btw, if there's no chance of finding more details about the lens from its serial number then maybe someone wiser than me would tell me who could've been the manufacturer of it? I found some photos with similar design that would suggest it was Komine. Am I correct?


PostPosted: Tue Aug 24, 2021 1:05 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

The idea that the "H" stands for Hanimex and that its excess orders were resold to others including Soligor does match another section of what barnaby said in what I quoted earlier (http://forum.mflenses.com/h-code-lenses-t42233,start,25.html) Like 1 small :

barnaby wrote:
I (barnaby) have been indirectly in touch with Charles Strasser via email, Charles was the founder of Photopia Ltd. here in the UK. (...) I asked him about the serial numbers and offered my thoughts as to how the system worked. Charles own brand of "Palinar" lenses all started with the serial number ST. I asked him if this was related to his surname which he confirmed was, as he was generally known in the Japanese photo industry as "Strasser San". Charles also confirmed that it was indeed Tokyo Koki who made his lenses.


So from this we might conclude that:
ST = "Strasser" = Palinar
H = Hanimex (sounds plausible to me)
M = ?

Also, from banaby's conversation with Charles Strasser we can conclude that apparently the Palinars were Tokina. I have several "H" serial lenses of which I am fairly sure they are Tokina.

Here is an other question though: Would it be plausible that manufacturers other than Tokina used the same serial number convention as Tokina appears to have done? If the answer to that question is "no", then we might conclude that the Soligor OEM list needs to be revised to make all H serials Tokina (and not just H3 and H7). Does that make sense or am I jumping to conclusions?

If the answer is "yes, several manufacturers used this code where letter equals reseller", then that makes figuring out who made which lenses a lot more difficult.

Regards, C.


PostPosted: Tue Aug 24, 2021 2:51 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Here's an additional thought. Please read my previous response first.

Palinar lenses have serials starting with ST. Reason appears to be that the ST stands for "Strasser", the last name of the gentleman who founded the Palinar brand.

Hanimex was founded by a man called Jack Hannes (source: http://camera-wiki.org/wiki/Hanimex). According to camera-wiki, Hanimex is an acronym for HANnes IMport EXport. So perhaps the "H" in the serials is Hannes in stead of Hanimex. That would agree more with the ST.

What if Hanimex not only sold lenses under its own brand but was also the agent for other brands? Perhaps a brand could choose to deal with Tokina themselves, such as Palinar for example, or they could opt to have Hanimex do it for them. I imagine having a third party, Hanimex in this case, do this for you might be more cost effective than doing it yourself. That might explain both the "H = Hannes / Hanimex" as well as the fact that there are a lot of different lens brands out there that have lenses with H serials.

Just a thought.

Regards, C.


PostPosted: Tue Aug 24, 2021 9:46 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Regardless of what the letters signify on these sixties lenses, I think they are from before the Soligor serial number conventions used on the later auto closing aperture lenses in the seventies. I think many were made by Tokina. http://camera-wiki.org/wiki/Tokina#Tokyo_Koki_.2F_Tele-Tokina_Lenses

Tamron was also already in the picture in the sixties. I have a Soligor 200mm F6.3 made by Tamron. It's serial starts with T But then 402455 so no year/month in the serial.


PostPosted: Tue Aug 24, 2021 10:17 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

D1N0 wrote:
Regardless of what the letters signify on these sixties lenses, I think they are from before the Soligor serial number conventions used on the later auto closing aperture lenses in the seventies. I think many were made by Tokina. http://camera-wiki.org/wiki/Tokina#Tokyo_Koki_.2F_Tele-Tokina_Lenses

Tamron was also already in the picture in the sixties. I have a Soligor 200mm F6.3 made by Tamron. It's serial starts with T But then 402455 so no year/month in the serial.


Lenses such as the Twin Tele were Tamron's and sold as Soligor, and virtually identical to look at. I don't think there was much cosmetic personalization going on to create a brand style for the rebranders such as Soligor, Vivitar and Hanimex, which is why I am more confident in identifying the manufacturer of those early lenses by comparison to the products from known suppliers such as Tokina and Tamron.

I agree that in those early times the serial numbers didn't carry any information other than the production run numbers.