Glass Bodies a variant-level encyclopedia of vintage lenses and cameras by iwillpat

Contax IIIa

Zeiss Ikon Β· Contax RF mount Β· 24Γ—36mm on 35mm film, removable back Β· 1951

Also known as: Zeiss Ikon Contax IIIa Β· Contax 3a Β· コンタックスIIIa

Variants & identification

Variant Mount Years Serial ranges Production
Black dial Contax RF 1951–1954 T 35001–40000 β€” 03/1951 to 07/1952
V 20001–25000 β€” 07/1952 to 10/1952
Y 52001–57000 β€” 11/1952 to 03/1953
A 53001–63000 β€” 04/1953 to 10/1953 		No figure published
Colour dial Contax RF 1954–1961 B 95001–100000 β€” 11/1953 to 09/1954
C 1–5000 β€” 10/1954 to 02/1955
D 76001–86000 β€” 03/1955 to 01/1956
F 25001–30000 β€” 02/1956 to 08/1956
L 75001–85000 β€” 07/1956 to 07/1961
O 86001–91000 β€” 11/1956 to 07/1957
Q 1–25 β€” 1960
R 34001–38000 β€” 02/1961 to 08/1962 		No figure published
  1. The published block table runs past the end date carried here. Its last IIIa block, R 34001–38000, is dated 02/1961 to 08/1962, and the L block runs to 07/1961, where this entry and camera-wiki end production in 1961. Camerapedia gives the model's span as March 1951 to August 1962, which matches the table's first and last blocks exactly.
  2. Camerapedia gives production as 25,000 black-dial cameras in 1951–53 against 44,025 colour-dial cameras in 1953–62 β€” figures that cover the IIa and the IIIa together, not the IIIa alone. Henry Scherer's estimate that roughly ten IIIa bodies were made for every IIa is consistent with them, and neither can be recovered from the block spans.
  3. The blocks are allocations issued in parallel, not one chronological run. L 75001–85000 spans 07/1956 to 07/1961 while O 86001–91000 spans 11/1956 to 07/1957 entirely inside it, and Q 1–25 β€” twenty-five numbers β€” sits alone in 1960. A serial therefore fixes a period rather than a position in a queue, and the count of numbers in a block is not a count of cameras.
  4. Two datings of the dial change. The block table puts the last black-dial IIIa at 10/1953 and the first colour-dial one at 11/1953; this entry dates the colour dial from 1954, and Henry Scherer puts it at "sometime in about 1953 or 1954". Both are recorded rather than resolved. Two further sources now sit on the 1954 side and neither depends on the other: Pacific Rim Camera writes that in 1954 Zeiss changed the design of the IIa and IIIa to accept standard flash cords and that these later cameras are the colour dials, and Stephen Gandy dates the colour dial's introduction to 1954 outright.
  5. Scherer's account of the IIIa's start disagrees with the table. He writes that Zeiss began manufacturing the IIIa black dial "starting in about 1953", where the block table dates T 35001–40000 to 03/1951 β€” which is the date this entry already carries.
  6. Corroboration pass, September 2026. This entry previously rested on camera-wiki and the block table behind it. Two independent references were found that carry its substantive claims: Pacific Rim Camera's combined Contax IIa and IIIa page and Stephen Gandy's at CameraQuest. Both describe the IIIa as a IIa with an uncoupled selenium meter added to the top plate; both date the black-to-colour dial change to 1954 and tie it to the switch from a proprietary Zeiss flash connection to a standard PC socket; both describe the shutter as vertically running aluminium slats replacing the prewar brass, with gears replacing the cloth connecting straps; and both end Zeiss Ikon's rangefinder production in 1961 in favour of the Contarex, which Pacific Rim dates to 1959. Gandy gives the rangefinder base as 73mm and the shutter sequence as T, B, 1, 2, 5, 10, 25, 50, 100, 250, 500, 1250 β€” matching this entry exactly, digit for digit. The single-source badge is cleared on that basis.
  7. Gandy adds a figure the base length alone does not give: the IIa and IIIa finder magnification is about 0.66, so the 73mm base yields an effective base length of roughly 48mm β€” a shade under a 0.72 Leica M. He also notes that the postwar rangefinder was simplified, and unlike the prewar II and III can go out of vertical or horizontal alignment.
  8. A mounting warning that applies to the body, not the lens. The postwar aluminium shutter slats are lighter than the prewar brass ones but had to be made thicker, and the rear element of the PREWAR 35mm f/2.8 Biogon strikes them when the lens is mounted, damaging the glass. Pacific Rim Camera and Gandy both give this, and Gandy adds that postwar West German 35s fit prewar and postwar bodies alike, and that Soviet Kiev lenses will generally fit a IIa or IIIa except the Russian 35mm f/2.8, whose rear element is likewise too large.
  9. Flash, in the detail the block table implies but does not state. Sync is 1/50. A black-dial body needs Zeiss's own cords, and Gandy records that the bulb and electronic-flash connectors are different parts β€” 1361 and 1366 β€” both long out of production and hard to find. The colour dial's standard PC socket is the whole practical difference.
How to tell them apart (expand)
  • A bulky uncoupled selenium meter on the top plate, as on the prewar III
  • 73mm rangefinder base

Black dial:

  • Shutter speeds in black; proprietary flash socket

Colour dial:

  • Shutter speeds in colours; standard PC socket

Serial-range notes

one letter and five digits
THE RULE. Zeiss Ikon kept its prewar camera numbering after the war β€” a letter followed by a five-digit number, a new letter every 99,999 β€” and Stuttgart ran a fresh letter sequence through the 1950s: P = 1949/50, S = 1950/51, T = 1951, U, V and X = 1952, Y = 1952/53, A and B = 1953/55, C = 1954/55, D = 1955/56, F = 1956, L = 1956/61, O = 1956/57, Q = 1960, R = 1961/62. The letter is the date. It repeats the prewar alphabet, so a postwar body must never be read against the Dresden table: the same letter there means the 1930s.
T 35001–40000 through A 53001–63000
The black-dial IIIa, block by block, dated to the month: T 35001–40000 for 03/1951 to 07/1952; V 20001–25000 for 07/1952 to 10/1952; Y 52001–57000 for 11/1952 to 03/1953; A 53001–63000 for 04/1953 to 10/1953. Camera-wiki cites this same list behind its West German letter table.
B 95001–100000 through R 34001–38000
The colour-dial IIIa, block by block: B 95001–100000 for 11/1953 to 09/1954; C 1–5000 for 10/1954 to 02/1955; D 76001–86000 for 03/1955 to 01/1956; F 25001–30000 for 02/1956 to 08/1956; L 75001–85000 for 07/1956 to 07/1961; O 86001–91000 for 11/1956 to 07/1957; Q 1–25 in 1960; R 34001–38000 for 02/1961 to 08/1962.
the block, read as a dial
The table separates the two variants without opening the camera. T, V, Y and the A block are mechanical flash sync and a black speed dial; B onward is the internal PC-socket camera with the coloured dial. A body whose dial and block disagree has had a top plate changed, or is one of the home conversions Henry Scherer warns against β€” he reports black-dial cameras fitted with a PC socket, which ruins the shutter action and cannot be reversed.
the IIa's blocks, which are different
The IIa and the IIIa were numbered from the same letter sequence but different segments of it, so the two models CAN be told apart by serial where the prewar II and III cannot. The IIa takes T 5001–9000 and T 28001–35000 where the IIIa takes T 35001–40000; the IIa takes V 15001–20000 where the IIIa takes V 20001–25000; the IIa takes Y 57001–62001 where the IIIa takes Y 52001–57000; the IIa takes A 43001–53000 where the IIIa takes A 53001–63000.
the cold shoe, and inside the camera
Where to look. Camerapedia records the accessory shoe engraved "Zeiss Ikon, Stuttgart, Germany" with the serial number, and the same number repeated inside the camera. A shoe number with no matching internal one is worth questioning.
the number on the lens
A separate sequence. Carl Zeiss numbered lenses in one continuous run across every type, and after the war the run forked: Oberkochen in the West restarted at 10000 and passed 500000 by 1951, 1100000 by 1953, 2600000 by 1959 and 3000000 by 1961, while Carl Zeiss Jena in the East resumed above 3000000. Oberkochen lenses read Zeiss-Opton until the trademark dispute was settled around 1953 and Carl Zeiss after it. None of these numbers relate to the body's.

Specifications

Format
24Γ—36mm on 35mm film, removable back
Finder
Combined viewfinder and coupled rangefinder
Base length
73 mm
Shutter
vertical-travel aluminium slat, gear-connected Β· T, B, 1, 2, 5, 10, 25, 50, 100, 250, 500, 1250
Meter
Uncoupled selenium cell in the top plate
Country
Germany

Where sources disagree

First β€” when the IIIa entered production
  • 1951 β€” the block table's first IIIa allocation, T 35001–40000, dated 03/1951; Camerapedia opens the model in March 1951 (the date this entry carries)
  • 1950 β€” Stephen Gandy has West German Zeiss introducing the IIa and IIIa together in 1950, and dates the black dial 1950–54
  • 1953 β€” Henry Scherer writes that Zeiss began manufacturing the IIIa black dial starting in about 1953

Better supported: 1951, on the block table and Camerapedia agreeing to the month

Pacific Rim Camera splits the difference in a way that may explain Gandy: it dates the new postwar Contax line to 1950 and then says separately that Zeiss released the Contax IIIa in 1951. If the 1950 date belongs to the IIa and the 1951 to the metered IIIa, Gandy's figure is a compression of the two rather than a contradiction of them. Scherer's 1953 is harder to reconcile with a block allocation dated 03/1951 and is left standing as his own.

Whether black-dial or colour-dial cameras are the scarcer
  • Colour dial is scarcer β€” Gandy reports meeting black dials over colour dials at about three to one on the US West Coast, despite the colour dial being in production for the longer period
  • Colour dial is the more numerous β€” Camerapedia's figures are 25,000 black-dial cameras in 1951–53 against 44,025 colour-dial in 1953–62

Better supported: Neither. One is a production figure, the other is a survival-and-market observation, and they are not the same measurement

The Camerapedia figures cover the IIa and the IIIa together and cannot be split. Gandy is explicit that his ratio is what he has seen in one region of one country. A reader should take from the pair only that the two dials exist in comparable numbers, and that neither count can be recovered from the serial blocks.

What reviewers say

History

The IIIa is a IIa with the selenium meter, and it is the end of the line. Zeiss Ikon stopped making rangefinders in 1961 to concentrate on the Contarex, an SLR of extraordinary complexity and cost that did not save the company. The Contax name went dormant as a rangefinder until Kyocera revived it for the autofocus G1 in 1994, by which time nothing but the word connected them.

Everything else is the IIa: 73mm base, gear-driven aluminium shutter to 1/1250, black dial until 1954 and colour dial after. The meter is uncoupled, and after seventy years most of them read low or not at all.

The line it closes had run since 1932 in Dresden and Stuttgart β€” and continued, without Zeiss Ikon’s name on it, in Kyiv for another twenty-six years.

Expand Collapse

This history is AI-written, from the sources listed at the foot of the page. Where the record is silent it says so rather than filling the gap β€” but no human wrote these sentences.

Photographs

Contax IIIa
Contax IIIa, colour dial β€” s58y, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0)
Contax IIIa
Contax IIIa outfit β€” Karl Schillinger, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Live listings

Asking price, USD: a median of $330 across 43 fixed-price listings on 2026-09-11 (middle half $250–$460). Tracked since 2026-09-06, 2 days: unchanged from $330.

By day
DateMedianMiddle halfListings
2026-09-11$330$250–$46043
2026-09-06$330$250–$46043

Asking prices from the listings scanned, not sales; junk-flagged rows and auction lots excluded; other currencies are not converted.

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Listings updated 2026-09-11. Links go to the shop or marketplace that carries the item.

Related: Contax IIa Β· Contax III

Lenses for this body: Biogon 21mm f/4.5 Β· Biotar 7.5cm f/1.5

Sources (9)

Every page here is assembled from public sources, and the gaps are real ones. If you own this camera, know a serial number I'm missing, or can see where I have it wrong, tell me β€” corrections, serials and sample photos are all worth having.