[Leica] OFF-TOPIC: Contax S

[Marc James Small <msmall@roanoke.infi.net>]

At 08:52 AM 3/25/98 -0800, Jim Laurel wrote:
>I have a (circa 1958) Contax S which, you may remember, was the very first
>production SLR camera ever made.  On this particular example, the Contax
>name was burnished off and a plate riveted onto the pentaprism on top, with
>the engraving: "Hexacon".  There is also a ring in the lens barrel (a 58mm
>F2 Planar with the most amazing bokeh -- really, really distinct), which
>also covers the lens' original markings, which said "Carl Zeiss Jena".  You
>can still barely make out parts of the letters.  The covering ring just says
>"CZ Jena".
>
>On the bottom of the camera is stamped "Made in Germany USSR occupied".
>Very interesting.  My father purchased this camera new in New York and we
>suspect that this it was possibly a black (or at least grey) market import.
>I know that at that time, the Carl Zeiss Jena plant had been moved to
>Russia, and there were still a few stragglers left in Jena assembling the S
>from parts that were still left around after the Russians carted everything
>off to the Soviet Union.  Perhaps that's why this S had all the original
>Carl Zeiss and Contax markings burnished off.

This camera is eight or nine years older than you suggest, the S dating
from 1949 and 1951, when it was superseded by the Contax D.  These were
legally imported into the US by Carl Zeiss USA, as it represented both the
East and West German branches of Zeiss until it was re-acquired by Carl
Zeiss (Oberkochen) in 1960.  However, the West German Zeiss interests were
powerful enough to have the US Customs guys chisel out Zeiss trademarks,
such as "Carl Zeiss" and "Biotar" and the like, hence the 'CZ Jena' and
'aus Jena' brand-names so common on gear of this era.

There is a difference between Zeiss Ikon, the camera guys, and Carl Zeiss,
the lensmakers.  The Jena plant was looted and a lot of gear, but not all,
was shipped off to the USSR, but this didn't happen to the Dresden Zeiss
Ikon works.  There, although the Contax assembly works at the old ICA plant
had been flattened by the Dresden fire-bombing, the Ernemann Tower works
survived, and this is where the Contax S and D were produced.

I would appreciate both body numbers and the lens number for the Zeiss
Historica Society archive.

Marc




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