Jena Contax

Carl Zeiss Jena · Contax RF mount · 24×36mm on 35mm film, removable back · 1946

single source, unconfirmed

Also known as: Carl Zeiss Jena Contax · Jena Contax · Saalfeld Contax

Variants & identification

Variant	Mount	Years	Serial ranges	Production
Carl Zeiss Jena marked	Contax RF	1946–1947	6000–30000 — four- or five-digit numbers with NO letter prefix, issued non-consecutively and with large gaps (Zeiss Historica 21/1, Spring 1999, via Mike Eckman) 47xxxx — a second, Soviet-pattern number found on some cameras, whose first two digits give the year	3,800 scheduled and an unknown number built. An internal Carl Zeiss memo of 26 February 1946 set the Saalfeld works a month-by-month rate — 300 each in September and October 1946, 500 each in November and December, 700 in January 1947, 800 in February and 600 in March — which totals 3,800; Larry Gubas, who read the memo in the Carl Zeiss works archive in Jena, adds that "the actual production could have been lower or higher". Mike Eckman relays the same 3,800 figure from Zeiss Historica
Unmarked, no serial	Contax RF	1946–1946	—	No figure published

No serial list, and no dated production table, has been published for the Jena Contax in any source consulted. What exists is a known range, a handful of individually documented cameras, and a registry: as recently as 1999 the total number of DOCUMENTED Jena Contaxes was a little over 100, and Mike Eckman knows of no more recent registry. An estimate of about 1,200 built is described by the same source as speculation.
The dates and the markings are both disputed, and the disagreement decides what a genuine serial looks like. Mike Eckman, following Zeiss Historica, has the cameras assembled at Saalfeld from 1946 into 1947, carrying a Carl Zeiss Jena logo and a serial on the accessory shoe. Henry Scherer, whose Jena Contax page is readable in the Internet Archive, argues from a 1948 instruction book and 1947 dealer advertising that the genuine postwar German Contax II and III were built in Jena in very small numbers between 1947 and 1951, and that they were marked "Zeiss Ikon" rather than "Carl Zeiss Jena" — the prewar company name still being in use at that date. Both accounts are recorded here rather than resolved.
Scherer cites a 1948 instruction book issued for "Camera No. 218" as evidence that the postwar Jena cameras were built in tiny numbers. That figure does not sit inside the 6000–30000 range Zeiss Historica reports, and nothing consulted explains whether it is a serial in the same series or a separate sequence.
Three Contax lines were set up under Soviet direction after the war: two in Dresden, shipped almost immediately to the Arsenal factory in Kyiv, and one at Jena. All were dismantled and sent to Kyiv in October 1947, which is where the Kiev rangefinders begin.
What is now double-sourced, and what still is not. The production history no longer rests on one collector article. Larry Gubas's "After Dresden: the migration of the Contax to Jena and Kiev" (Zeiss Historica Journal, Spring 2001), published in full on the Society's own site and readable in the Internet Archive, was written from the Carl Zeiss works archive in Jena and independently carries the February 1946 memo, the 3,800-camera schedule, the Saalfeld location and the transfer of the whole facility to Kyiv. Gubas also names the source Mike Eckman is relaying: he credits the Jena Contax identification to Charles Barringer's article of Spring 1999 in the same journal, which is the Volume 21 Number 1 citation this entry carries at second hand. The SERIAL evidence is not double-sourced. The 6000–30000 range, the non-consecutive issue, the duplicated serial, the accessory-shoe logo and the count of a little over 100 documented cameras all still trace to Barringer 1999 as relayed by Eckman, and no second source consulted states any of them. The badge stays on for that reason.
Two things Gubas adds that appear nowhere else in this entry's sources. First, the camera the Soviet authorities were commissioning was not to be called the Kiev: "This 'new' camera was initially to be called the Volga", and the Kyiv factory is the "Volga factory" throughout the Carl Zeiss documents; the name Kiev was substituted later. Second, the November 1945 demand was made of Carl Zeiss rather than Zeiss Ikon, required eight complete sets of drawings plus sample cameras, lenses and accessories, named ten specific lenses, and specified machinery capable of 5,000 cameras a month in Kyiv. The process was overseen by a Soviet officer Gubas names as Major Turuegin.
Saalfeld, not Jena. Gubas is explicit that the Carl Zeiss documents put the line "not in Jena proper but rather in Saalfeld which is about an hour's drive from Jena" — the site that later built the Werra cameras — and that "it is these Contax cameras from this pre-Kiev production in Saalfeld were to become known as the Jena Contax". The name of the camera is therefore a collector's name for where the paperwork came from, not for where it was assembled.
A point that bears on the markings dispute without settling it. Gubas examined the postwar Contax technical drawings still held in the Carl Zeiss works archive and reports that most of them are marked Carl Zeiss Jena and only a few Zeiss Ikon (Dresden), which he reads as confirming that the camera was not identical to the prewar Dresden Contax. That is evidence about drawings, not about what was engraved on a camera, and it does not decide Henry Scherer's argument that the bodies themselves were marked Zeiss Ikon.
Where the Kiev picks up. Gubas records that many early Kiev cameras carry front plates that were originally struck Contax, that Dresden components were still being used up into 1948, and that many early Kiev lenses have serial numbers in the same series as Carl Zeiss Jena lenses. USSRPhoto's collector catalogue documents the extreme case at the other end: two cameras "assembled completely from Dresden Contaxes", carrying no Zeiss serial numbers, with a Kiev front plate made in Jena and the back-door leatherette replaced to remove the Zeiss Ikon logo — "assembled most probably prior the official production of Kiev cameras in Jena in 1947". Two such cameras are known to that registry.

How to tell them apart (expand)

A Contax II in every mechanical respect, including the mount
Assembled at Saalfeld rather than Dresden or Stuttgart

Carl Zeiss Jena marked:

A Carl Zeiss Jena logo on the ACCESSORY SHOE, with a four- or five-digit serial roughly between 6000 and 30000
On genuine examples, NO logo on the front plate beside the word Contax
Rebuilt shutters; chromium in place of gold in the rangefinder; painted rather than chromed parts; heavier brass film doors; duller chrome

Unmarked, no serial:

No maker's logo and no serial number — a testing batch

Carl Zeiss Jena marked: The internal substitutions are the point: this is a Contax II built from what was available in occupied Germany, not to Zeiss Ikon's prewar specification.

Serial-range notes

no letter prefix: THE RULE, and it is a rule of exclusion. Zeiss Ikon numbered every Dresden and Stuttgart camera with a letter followed by five digits — B21882, C89172, G14580 — a new letter each time 99,999 was reached. The Jena Contax does not use it. The number on the accessory shoe is four or five digits with no letter at all, and that absence is the first thing to check on a camera offered as one. Because the scheme is different, none of the Zeiss Ikon letter tables date this camera, and no year-by-year serial list has been published for it.
6000–30000: The whole known range. Zeiss Historica, Volume 21 Number 1, Spring 1999, puts the lowest recorded serials at around 6000 and the highest at around 30000, as relayed by Mike Eckman. The numbers were not issued consecutively — the sequence has large gaps — and in at least one documented case the same serial was used twice (Zeiss Historica, Volume 33 Number 1, Spring 2011). A number inside the range proves nothing on its own, and a number outside it is a reason to stop.
11884: A confirmed genuine camera, and the only individual serial found with a date attached: Mike Eckman gives it as likely made in late 1947 or early 1948. That is later than the 1946–47 span carried in this entry, and it is one of the reasons the production window is disputed — see the table notes.
the second number, 47xxxx: Some cameras carry two sets of numbers: the Zeiss serial, and a Soviet-pattern number whose first two digits are the year of manufacture, so 47xxxx means 1947. Where both are present the Soviet number dates the camera and the Zeiss one does not.
inside the film door, and under the film gate: Matching numbers should appear inside the film door and on the underside of the film gate in the film compartment, agreeing with the one on the accessory shoe. But some confirmed genuine cameras carry no serial number anywhere — the unmarked testing batch — so the absence of a number does not disqualify a camera any more than the presence of one authenticates it.
the number on the lens: A different sequence, and a useful cross-check. Carl Zeiss numbered lenses in one continuous run across all types; the prewar and wartime Jena numbers stay below 3000000, and postwar Jena resumed above it, so a red-T coated lens numbered over 3000000 is postwar East German whatever the body it sits on.

Specifications

Format: 24×36mm on 35mm film, removable back
Country: Germany

Where sources disagree

Years

1946–1947, assembled at Saalfeld — Charles Barringer, Zeiss Historica 21/1, Spring 1999, as relayed by Mike Eckman; the schedule in the 26 February 1946 Carl Zeiss memo read by Larry Gubas runs September 1946 to March 1947
1947–1951, built at Jena in very small numbers — Henry Scherer, arguing from a 1948 instruction book and 1947 dealer advertising

Better supported: The 1946–47 reading, which now rests on two independent readings of Zeiss Historica material and on a dated internal memo; Scherer's is a single argument from printed matter rather than from company records

The disagreement is not only about dates. Scherer holds that the genuine postwar German cameras were marked "Zeiss Ikon" rather than "Carl Zeiss Jena", which would make the accessory-shoe logo this entry uses as its first identification test the wrong test. One documented serial, 11884, is dated by Eckman to late 1947 or early 1948, later than the memo's schedule allows.

Markings

A Carl Zeiss Jena logo on the accessory shoe and nothing beside the word Contax on the front plate — Barringer via Eckman
Marked Zeiss Ikon, the prewar company name still being in use at that date — Henry Scherer

Gubas's examination of the postwar Contax drawings in the Carl Zeiss works archive found most of them marked Carl Zeiss Jena and only a few Zeiss Ikon, which speaks to the drawings and not to the engraving on a body.

What reviewers say

Mike Eckman, research article (blog) — Not a shooting review — nobody has one — but the fullest account written: built in Saalfeld by Zeiss workers under Soviet direction on genuine tooling, with the first T-coated Sonnars to appear on any Contax, and shutters rebuilt from prewar parts with poor materials. Fewer than 150 are documented; "the true number that were made is probably much less." single source, unconfirmed

History

Between the Contax II and the Kiev II there is an eighteen-month gap, and the Jena Contax fills it. In February 1946 the Soviet authorities ordered Contax production restarted; a team of Zeiss employees at Saalfeld, working from salvaged Dresden tooling and machinery moved to Jena during the war, assembled cameras through 1946 and into 1947 as proof the line could run at all. In October 1947 all three Contax lines — two in Dresden and this one — were dismantled and shipped to the Arsenal factory in Kyiv.

The cameras are Contax IIs with substitutions. Shutters were rebuilt rather than made new; chromium replaced gold in the rangefinder; parts that had been chrome-plated were painted; the film doors are heavier brass and the chrome is duller. They carry a Carl Zeiss Jena logo on the accessory shoe with a four- or five-digit serial, and — on genuine examples — nothing beside the word Contax on the front plate. Some were assembled with no logo and no serial at all.

The order is documented, and the documentation can be read. A Carl Zeiss internal memo of 26 February 1946 set Saalfeld a rate of 300 cameras in each of September and October 1946, 500 in each of November and December, 700 in January 1947, 800 in February and 600 in March — 3,800 in all, with the same memo listing by type and number the machines that were to go to Kyiv afterwards. Larry Gubas read it in the Carl Zeiss works archive in Jena and published the figures in the Zeiss Historica Journal in 2001. How many cameras were actually finished he could not say either.

What is still thin is the identification. The serial range of roughly 6000 to 30000, the gaps in it, the case of one number used twice, the logo on the accessory shoe and the count of a little over a hundred documented survivors all descend from one article — Charles Barringer’s, in the same journal in Spring 1999 — reaching this entry at second hand. No independent source consulted states any of them, and Henry Scherer disputes the markings outright. On a camera this heavily faked, that gap is the thing to know about.

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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 — but no human wrote these sentences.

Live listings

Asking price, EUR: a median of €140 across 6 fixed-price listings on 2026-09-11 (middle half €140–€170). Tracked since 2026-09-06, 2 days: unchanged from €140.

By day

Date	Median	Middle half	Listings
2026-09-11	€140	€140–€170	6
2026-09-06	€140	€140–€170	6

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

Carl Zeiss Jena Contax Sonnar 2/8,5cm Sucher Aufstecksucher Finder — €100.00 · eBay
Zeiss Jena Contax Rangefinder IIa Torpedofinder 85-135mm in matching case — €139.00 · Arsenal Photo
Carl Zeiss Jena CONTAX Sonnar 5cm f2 2202403 jw016M — €140.00 · eBay
Carl Zeiss Jena Contax 4/8,5cm Triotar SHP 55827 — €169.00 · eBay
Zeiss Jena Contax Sonnar 4/13,5cm lens chrome for Contax clean glass — €169.00 · Arsenal Photo
Carl Zeiss Jena Contax Sonnar T 1941 F2 5cm — €250.00 · eBay
Tessar f3.5 5cm 50mm Carl Zeiss Jena CONTAX rangefinder iii iiia ii i — £159.00 · eBay

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