Leica loves to do crazy things like pull out an old, discontinued design and make twenty of them in Persian Pink as a special order for the Sultan of Brunei to hand out as party favors. Serial numbers after 2000 are less accurate. Serial number blocks are reserved, and then lenses may or may not be made with these numbers. If Leica ever almost duplicated a number, the second item had a star added after its otherwise identical serial number.Ĭameras and lenses each have their own run of serial numbers, so the same number may be found on one camera and on one lens. No two Leica lenses or cameras have the same serial number. ( Canon uses separate date codes, and Roland Vink is the world's guardian of Nikon's serial number data.)

Sadly, Nikon and Canon are not as organized, and use completely unrelated serial numbers for every product.

Leica made lens number 1,000,000, a 50mm f/1.5 Summarit, on 24 October 1952, at which time they already had over 100 years of optical experiance.īecause of this orderly behavior, it it trivial to figure out when your lens was made. When Leitz decided to start making camera lenses, they did the right thing and used six digits for the serial number, and started at number 100,000.Īs serial numbers should be, they gave each lens its own serial number, and counted up.