Summar 2/5cm lenses

The first Leica lens with a maximum aperture of f/2 was the 5 cm Leitz Summar lens. It was introduced in 1933 and contained six elements in four groups. The first version was a rigid mount lens. As chrome finish Leica cameras were offered as an alternative from 1933 on-wards, both nickel and silver chrome-versions of the early rigid Summar version exist.
Fittings of black-paint finished Leica cameras continued to be equipped with nickel fittings, so that there was demand for both finish variants also in lenses. Of the rigid Summar, in total only 1,261 pieces were made, only 246 units of which in silver chrome. We find the opposite proportion in the collapsible second version of the Summar: the fittings of the black-paint Leica cameras were changed to chrome versions in later years, so that only a smaller number of nickel lenses exist of the collapsible Summar introduced in 1934, compared to the mass production chrome lens. The first version of the collapsible Summar in nickel finish shows a typical black rim as lens front-mount and is particularly rare.

Literature: James L. Lager (ed.), Leica Illustrated History, Vol. II, 1994, p. 37-38.

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