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WIP: Vintage lens serial number lookup tool
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PostPosted: Tue Aug 06, 2024 10:27 am    Post subject: WIP: Vintage lens serial number lookup tool Reply with quote
I thought I'd share a new tool I'm working on and get your feedback. It's a simple serial number lookup tool for various vintage optics companies that provides an approximate year of manufacture for lenses. I created this tool to help me quickly determine the period in which my vintage lenses were made.

I've collected serial numbers from various sources and conducted my own research to compile a somewhat complete serial number/year range for some companies. Not all companies serial numbers can be organized this way. Currently, the tool supports only chronologically counted serial numbers.

If you'd like to test it out, it's live right now:
https://espensusort.no/vintage-lens-year-calculator/

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PostPosted: Tue Aug 06, 2024 12:58 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
Super!


PostPosted: Tue Aug 06, 2024 1:02 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
Great idea, definitely useful!


PostPosted: Tue Aug 06, 2024 1:32 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
Many thanks for your efforts


PostPosted: Tue Aug 06, 2024 3:31 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
Very nice and well done!


PostPosted: Tue Aug 06, 2024 7:00 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
Nice, but I have checked some of my lenses and some results are contradictory. I own several books from Harthmut Thiele on serial numbers for different manufactures and Yours tool works nice for some lenses giving the proper manufacturing year but it has some discrepancies for other manufacturers , e.g. for Schneider or some CZJ.


PostPosted: Tue Aug 06, 2024 7:42 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
Interesting - thanks a lot !

S


Now someone should try to solve eternal mystery of Minolta SNs ... Wink


PostPosted: Wed Aug 07, 2024 7:11 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
Max78 wrote:
Nice, but I have checked some of my lenses and some results are contradictory. I own several books from Harthmut Thiele on serial numbers for different manufactures and Yours tool works nice for some lenses giving the proper manufacturing year but it has some discrepancies for other manufacturers , e.g. for Schneider or some CZJ.


Thank you for your feedback. Discrepancies do occur as I've used various publicly available serial number lists from various sources. The more serial numbers I have in the database the more accurate it will become. So if you have a couple of serial numbers you know the production date of I'd love to have them.


PostPosted: Fri Aug 09, 2024 5:00 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
Like 1 Like 1 Like 1

Nicely done - Congrats!!


PostPosted: Sat Aug 10, 2024 1:55 pm    Post subject: Re: WIP: Vintage lens serial number lookup tool Reply with quote
ostenespen wrote:
I thought I'd share a new tool I'm working on and get your feedback. It's a simple serial number lookup tool for various vintage optics companies that provides an approximate year of manufacture for lenses. I created this tool to help me quickly determine the period in which my vintage lenses were made.

I've collected serial numbers from various sources and conducted my own research to compile a somewhat complete serial number/year range for some companies. Not all companies serial numbers can be organized this way. Currently, the tool supports only chronologically counted serial numbers.

If you'd like to test it out, it's live right now:
https://espensusort.no/vintage-lens-year-calculator/


Nice idea, but ...

Useless for B&L. No one has ever published a credible B&L chronology. B&L initially used strictly numeric serial numbers, e.g., 2839901. I have this lens, your s/n finder says it is out of range. Oops! They later switched to alphanumeric serial numbers, e.g., BS1274. I have this lens too. Your s/n finder's parser truncated it to 1274. Oops again.

And then there's Boyer. S/n 907031 comes back out of range. I had that lens. Your date range for Boyer is incorrect, they stopped making lenses in 1982. S/n 563262 comes back as 1959. No, early post-WW II.

Study, plagiarize if it comes to that, P-H Pont's Les Chiffres Cles.


PostPosted: Wed Sep 25, 2024 9:47 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
Hi Espen:
Thanks for crediting my work on the Dallmeyer sequence. I can also help you out with improved chronologies for Steinheil, Rodenstock and Taylor Hobson.
Drop me a line: there's a few other collaborations I'd like to discuss with you . . .
Mark
www.DeltaLenses.com


PostPosted: Wed Sep 25, 2024 9:48 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
stevemark wrote:
Interesting - thanks a lot !

S


Now someone should try to solve eternal mystery of Minolta SNs ... Wink


. . . and Agfa!!


PostPosted: Thu Sep 26, 2024 2:57 pm    Post subject: Late CZJ Reply with quote
I would love to have something like this for the late MC Zeiss Jena Pentacon Six mount lenses, but I suspect their serial number format would make that impossible.


PostPosted: Thu Sep 26, 2024 6:15 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
Like 1 Like 1 Thank you so much for your considerable efforts! Well done!

David Rounsevell has the best website for Takumar serial numbers at the Takumar Field Guide https://takumarguide.weebly.com/ --of course there is a lot of other information there as well...

For Nikkors there is http://www.photosynthesis.co.nz/nikon/lenses.html

Perhaps you can fold these into your wonderful project?


PostPosted: Fri Sep 27, 2024 8:30 am    Post subject: Re: WIP: Vintage lens serial number lookup tool Reply with quote
ostenespen wrote:
I thought I'd share a new tool I'm working on and get your feedback. It's a simple serial number lookup tool for various vintage optics companies that provides an approximate year of manufacture for lenses. I created this tool to help me quickly determine the period in which my vintage lenses were made.

I've collected serial numbers from various sources and conducted my own research to compile a somewhat complete serial number/year range for some companies. Not all companies serial numbers can be organized this way. Currently, the tool supports only chronologically counted serial numbers.


Just a shout out to all those who have compiled these number series.

In most cases (with a couple of honourable exceptions) the manufacturer is either unwilling or unable to release such information, and it's a mighty thankless labour of love for an individual to comb the records, or painstakingly collate surviving press material and hundreds of samples, and puzzle over how best to fill the gaps. Actually, for number junkies, it's catnip. But they still deserve credit for the days and weeks they put in for the benefit of collectors and enthusiasts.

It also really helps when the community gets behind the effort. After all, the community benefits.

As Dan points out, some of the information out there is wonky, or plain trash. For instance, the Steinheil information you've taken from CameraWiki is literally wrong on every data point. I'm working toward improving this information for them, and have already published the complete Steinheil serial sequence on DeltaLenses. You're welcome to use it, suitably credited.

Some sequences – like Leica, Nikon, Dallmeyer and Steinheil – are open and shut cases: we have definitive information that will never be improved upon. By that, I mean almost every serial is accounted for, and we know the first and last lenses produced in any given year.

Many are in a kind of limbo where someone gave up, went mad or died before reaching 'full granularity'. Rodenstock's serials are like this – and others. Some are still sketched in vague approximations. Others (Minolta, Agfa and Meopta) are obscure to the point of complete opacity.

I'm in favour of centralised repositories of serial information – many are similarly gathered at Delta - but your interface (and site in general) is pretty and easy to use, and has already gathered more under one neat umbrella than anyone else. Keep going - but make sure the information is reliable, updated when possible, and communicates the difference between a known date for a given serial and an estimated one.


PostPosted: Sun Sep 29, 2024 9:34 pm    Post subject: Steinheil Serials Updated Reply with quote
I've just updated CameraWiki with the full Steinheil serial list: http://camera-wiki.org/wiki/Steinheil_serial_numbers


PostPosted: Tue Oct 01, 2024 7:32 am    Post subject: Re: Steinheil Serials Updated Reply with quote
16:9 wrote:
I've just updated CameraWiki with the full Steinheil serial list: http://camera-wiki.org/wiki/Steinheil_serial_numbers


Like 1 Like 1 I have a lot of STEINHEIL lenses - and I have the STEINHEIL book(s) which also lists those!



THIELE also has a book on Steinheil lenses!



PostPosted: Tue Oct 01, 2024 4:02 pm    Post subject: Re: Steinheil Serials Updated Reply with quote
[quote="kds315*"]
16:9 wrote:
THIELE also has a book on Steinheil lenses!


I believe Thiele reckons the 'date' of a lens based on when it left the factory, not when it was made, or the serial allocated - hence the front cover showing lenses dating from 1989. I've not followed this example, or referred to that publication – only to Steinheil's lens books at Deutsches Museum. Neither accounting method is without issues, but dates of sale create a fuzzier chronology. I've made estimates of undocumented serials that probably differ from Thiele's but I don't have the (out of print) book to compare. I'd welcome the chance to do so if you have time. Refinement may be possible.
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