Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1998/05/11
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]At 05:17 PM 5/11/98 -0400, Carl Socolow wrote: >I have an Army surplus enlarger modeled almost identically >after the Omega D2 and manufactured by Belfort Instruments. It came with >three lenses, one of which is a Tessar 4.5/135 inscribed Carl Zeiss Jena >around the front element. On the back retaining ring it says "Lens made >in Germany (East)". I always found it interesting that the U.S. Military >would purchase Iron Curtain manufactured lenses for equipment that the >Signal Corps was using for everything from PR to intelligence >photography. Zeiss perceived itself to be one entity whether in East Germany or West Germany until 1951 or so. That is, if you ordered a lens from Zeiss at Oberkochen (the West German guys), they would place the order either internally, if it was in stock, or with Jena (the East German guys) if not. In 1951, the litigation started, and all bets were off. Zeiss almost went postal when Franke & Heidecke ordered the lenses for the 2.8B Rolleiflex from Jena, a mistake that this esteemed Braunschweig firm never repeated! Do I have the serial number on this gem of an enlarging lens? Marc msmall@roanoke.infi.net FAX: +540/343-7315 Cha robh bas fir gun ghras fir!