Minolta-35 Model I (Models A–D)
Minolta · LTM mount · 24×32mm on the Models A and B, then 24×33 from the Model C and 24×34 on the late Model D (Leica Copies Japan); the sources disagree on where each step falls, see Disputed · 1947
Also known as: Minolta-35 · Minolta 35 I · Minolta 35-1 · Minolta-35 C.K.S. · Minolta 35 CKS · Chiyoda Kogaku Minolta-35 · Chiyoda Kogaku Osaka Minolta 35 · Minolta 35 Occupied Japan · ミノルタ35 · ミノルタ35 I型 · ミノルタ35 1型 · ミノルタ35 IA型 · ミノルタ35 IB型 · ミノルタ35 IC型 · ミノルタ35 ID型 · 千代田光学 ミノルタ35
Variants & identification
| Variant | Mount | Years | Serial ranges | Production |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Model A (Japanese IA型 and early IB型) | LTM | 1947–1947 | 027x–029x (type a), 052x–077x (type b), 095x–144x (type c) — serials Leica Copies Japan has seen 0285–0773 for the bodies with the slow-dial stopper (miyou55mane's IA型) | No factory figure. Leica Copies Japan reckons that over 3,000 of the 24×32 Models A and B were made, judging by their serial numbers. |
| Model B (C.K.S.; Japanese IB型) | LTM | 1947–1948 | 1482–1516 (type a, no maker name); 174x–284x (type b, C.K.S.) — Leica Copies Japan 1556, 1649, 1743, 2583 (antiquecameras.net) | No factory figure. Leica Copies Japan's 'over 3,000' covers the A and B together; the type a batch is put at about 50. |
| Model C (Japanese IC型) | LTM | 1948 | 400x–480x (type a), 513x–860x (type b) — Leica Copies Japan 4,118–8,298 (miyou55mane's IC型) | No factory figure published |
| Model D (Japanese ID型) | LTM | 1949 | 910x–1059x (type a), 1134x (type b, one seen) — Leica Copies Japan 9,236–12,255 (miyou55mane's ID型) | Leica Copies Japan repeats claimed figures of 1,900 type a and 1,500 type b, but has found thirteen type a bodies and only one type b, which it calls 'incredibly elusive'; the two figures sit uneasily with what turns up. |
- Four collector models on one page because nothing on the camera names them: every body before the E reads only 'Minolta-35'. Leica Copies Japan: 'Officially, there was only the original Minolta 35 and following Minolta 35 Models E, F, II and IIB.' The letters and the sub-types (A type a, b, c and so on) come from Rajner's Leica Copies and Andrea Aprà.
- 'Model I' is a collectors' name too. The Ei Mook 735 table and Hayata Camera Lab use I型 for the bodies before the E; miyou55mane counts the E and F as IE型 and IF型 of the same I型 and puts the whole I型 at about 26,000 from the highest F serial.
- A launch price of ¥36,800 in 1948 is given by one restoration page (endoscopy.jp) with no source and without saying whether a lens was included; it is left out of the price field.
- The 137 × 76 × 62mm and 730g figures are the Ei Mook 735 table's for the I型, which gives the same for the E and F without saying whether the lens is included. Leica Copies Japan quotes the E and F manuals at 800g in all, 135mm long and 75mm high, and weighed a bare Model II type a2, the same early body, at 584g.
- The 45mm f/2.8 was the only standard lens on these bodies. camera-wiki lists the Super Rokkor 8.5cm f/2.8 and the Tele Rokkors 11cm f/5.6 and 13.5cm f/4 among the lenses developed for the Model A; the 3.5cm and 5cm lenses came in the Model II years and fit these bodies as they fit any LTM camera.
How to tell them apart
- 'Minolta-35' on the top plate and no model name on the front plate: the E (1951) is the first to carry one
- A single finder window with a polished chrome surround, the slow-speed dial on the front plate beside the mount, and the self-timer lever below it
- No strap lugs before the Model D
- A sprung ball in the centre of the accessory shoe, which later bodies drop
Model A (Japanese IA型 and early IB型):
- Top plate engraved 'Minolta-35', the serial, and 'CHIYODA-KOGAKU OSAKA'; no model letter anywhere
- No strap lugs; a ball contact in the middle of the accessory shoe; rewind knob with the shaft showing in its centre
- Slow-speed dial reads from the front of the camera, not from above. Types a and b have a lock on the slow dial and speeds T, 1, 2, 5, 10, 25; type c drops the lock and reads T, 1, 2, 4, 8, 25
- Type b moves the film-counter index arrow from beside the 'R' to the right-hand end of the top plate
- No country-of-origin mark on the early bodies (miyou55mane); some carry a CPO tax-exempt mark on the wind knob, and on the case
Model B (C.K.S.; Japanese IB型):
- Top plate engraved 'C.K.S.' (Chiyoda Kōgaku Seikō) under 'Minolta-35' and the serial, in place of 'CHIYODA-KOGAKU OSAKA'; otherwise the Model A type c — no lugs, ball contact in the shoe, no slow-dial lock
- Type a, a batch of perhaps 50 around serials 1482 and 1516, is said to have no maker name at all (Collection Appareils, via Leica Copies Japan)
- 'MADE IN OCCUPIED JAPAN' appears from about #2,xxx (miyou55mane)
- The last examples, 277x and 284x, have the rewind knob without the shaft hole that the Model A and most Bs show (Leica Copies Japan)
- Lens scales on the earliest 45mm lenses read from the front; this changed during the Model B
Model C (Japanese IC型):
- Still 'Minolta-35' and 'C.K.S.' on the top plate, no lugs, no model name
- Film advance of 8 perforations instead of 7, so 36 frames to a cassette instead of 40, and a gate about a millimetre wider
- Type a keeps the slow dial reading from the front; type b turns the numbers over so they read from above, as on a Leica
- Flat top to the rewind knob, with no shaft showing (miyou55mane)
- Tax-exempt mark: Latin 'CPO' on type a, katakana 'シーピーオー' on type b (Leica Copies Japan; miyou55mane also has the katakana arriving in the IC)
Model D (Japanese ID型):
- The first Minolta-35 with strap lugs, one on each shoulder (miyou55mane; 'at either end of the camera body' in English Wikipedia)
- Rewind release lever in a new place: under the frame counter (Leica Copies Japan), under the wind knob (camera-wiki), around the rim of the wind knob and of a new shape (miyou55mane)
- A shallow depression in the front plate below the lens mount
- 'MADE IN OCCUPIED JAPAN' on the bottom plate (camera-wiki, body No. 9247); no シーピーオー mark (miyou55mane)
- Still no model name on the camera; a 'D' in a range given for the Model E is a D if the front plate is blank
- Model A (Japanese IA型 and early IB型): The English letters follow Hans P. Rajner's Leica Copies and Andrea Aprà; Japanese collectors call all of these bodies I型 and split them differently. miyou55mane's IA型 is the stopper-dial body to about #0773; the type c body, which loses the stopper and gets the 4 and 8 speeds, falls in his IB型. An English instruction sheet for this body shows the slow-dial lock ('F Slow Lock Button') and calls the shoe ball 'J Terminal for Flash Synchronizer' (reproduced by Leica Copies Japan). Leitz Auction sold an outfit as 'Minolta 35 I (Original)' — Chiyoda-Kogaku Osaka engraving, 24×32, Super Rokkor 45mm No. 2073, case and box — for €1,200 including premium; the catalogue prints the body number as 7120 and the year as 19470, so the body is probably 712, a type b.
- Model B (C.K.S.; Japanese IB型): Leica Copies Japan: 'The only difference between Model A, type c, and Model B is the maker name.' miyou55mane puts the change to C.K.S. at about #16xx, inside his IB型, which starts at #0827 with the 4 and 8 slow speeds. Bodies with CPO marks are recorded on the A, the B and the early C.
- Model C (Japanese IC型): GHQ objected that Kodak's automatic slide-mount cutters could not cope with the 24×32 frame (topgabacho; miyou55mane: 'GHQ命令で、フィルム自動切断機に対応し'). The 8-perforation pitch answered that even though the frame stayed short of 36mm. A Japanese instruction sheet for a body numbered 4526 or 4826 survives (reproduced by Leica Copies Japan).
- Model D (Japanese ID型): The front-plate depression was meant to clear the focusing tab of the second version of the Super Rokkor 45mm, which camera-wiki says arrived with this body; Leica Copies Japan doubts it helps much. antiquecameras.net files bodies 10216, 11039 and 12255 as Model Es (with a note that 10216 is engraved 'Model E' and has a 24×33 gate), inside the range Leica Copies Japan and miyou55mane give the D, and calls an unmarked 11XXX body a D 'in the Model E sequence'. Leica Copies Japan's Es start at 1518x and miyou55mane's IE at 15,103, and the E is the first body engraved with its model name, so a blank front plate in that range is a D.
Serial-range notes
- 0001–12255
- One sequence across the A, B, C and D with no breaks at the model changes (camera-wiki), so the number places a body more reliably than any one feature: below about 1480 is an A, about 1480–3500 a B, about 4000–8600 a C, about 9000–12300 a D. These are the ranges collectors have seen (Leica Copies Japan, miyou55mane), not factory records, and features were brought in on the line as they were ready.
- 0550–1000
- camera-wiki: wind knobs marked katakana CPO on 0550–0750 and Latin <CPO> on 0751–1000, tax-free stamps for Allied exchange stores. Leica Copies Japan and miyou55mane instead have the Latin mark first and the katakana later, on the C.
- 0515
- A Model A with a katakana-marked wind knob, listed by camera-wiki among its links (Eastwestphoto).
Specifications
- Format
- 24×32mm on the Models A and B, then 24×33 from the Model C and 24×34 on the late Model D (Leica Copies Japan); the sources disagree on where each step falls, see Disputed · 40 on the 24×32 bodies (7 perforations a frame); 36 from the Model C (8 perforations) exposures
- Finder
- Combined coupled rangefinder and reversed-Galilean viewfinder in one window (透視逆ガリレオ式)
- Base length
- 40 mm
- Shutter
- Horizontal cloth focal-plane; the leading and trailing curtains wind on separate drums (Hayata Camera Lab), a layout e-ektra says was modelled on the German FOTH · Top dial B, 1/25–1/500 (25, 35, 50, 100, 200, 500); front dial T, 1, 1/2, 1/5, 1/10, 1/25 on the early Model A, then T, 1, 1/2, 1/4, 1/8, 1/25 · flash sync Bulb contact in the accessory shoe — a sprung ball in its centre — for Chiyoda's Flash-Unit Type U; FP (Ei Mook 735 table); no X · self-timer
- Film advance
- Knob, self-cocking with automatic stop (ノブ式セルフコッキング自動巻き止め)
- Back
- Hinged, released by a recessed button in the base plate; fixed take-up spool
- Meter
- none
- Designed by
- Miyabe Hajimu — designed the Minolta-35 (Leica Copies Japan)
- Weight
- 730 g
- Dimensions
- 137 × 76 × 62 mm
- Country
- Japan
- Accessories
- Minolta Flash-Unit Type U, a bulb flashgun whose foot meets the ball contact in the shoe (Leica Copies Japan; camera-wiki) · Accessory finders for the 8.5cm, 11cm and 13.5cm lenses, marked in mm, among them a Tele Finder 85mm (camera-wiki) · Ever-ready case for the camera with its standard lens (camera-wiki)
One eyepiece for focusing and framing, which the Leica of 1947 did not have. No frame lines: a lens other than the standard 45mm wants an accessory finder, and Chiyoda supplied finders marked in millimetres with the 8.5cm, 11cm and 13.5cm lenses (camera-wiki). Magnification 0.33× on the A and B (effective base 13.2mm); the later figure is disputed.
Figures we worked out rather than found: About 12,000 Models A–D in all: the highest Model D number seen is 12,255 (miyou55mane) and camera-wiki says the numbers ran in one sequence without breaks. The real figure is lower if the series did not start at 0001 or skipped blocks. · Effective base length 13.2mm on the A and B is 40mm × 0.33, as Leica Copies Japan computes it
Where sources disagree
- Year
- 1947: May 1947 (camera-wiki, citing JCII/Lewis p.192; Leica Copies Japan; English Wikipedia: 'spring of 1947')
- 1948: Hayata Camera Lab, the Ei Mook 735 spec table, endoscopy.jp, topgabacho; e-ektra: prototype finished in 1947, sold from 1948
Better supported: 1947 for the first bodies, 1948 for general sale
Leica Copies Japan reproduces an English instruction sheet for the Model A and a Japanese Camera Times advertisement of July 1948; neither dates the first sale.
- Magnification (Models C and D)
- 0.7×, effective base 28mm, from the Model C (Leica Copies Japan; camera-wiki)
- 0.33× until the Model E (miyou55mane: 'IA〜ID型(0.33倍)'; the Ei Mook 735 table gives 0.33× for the I型 and 0.7× for the E; e-ektra gives 0.3× for the I型; Hayata Camera Lab and topgabacho put the higher magnification at the E)
Leica Copies Japan notes that the finder window and its chrome surround do not change from the A to the D and grow with the E, but says window size shows little or no correlation with the reported magnifications.
- Format (Models B, C, D)
- Leica Copies Japan: A and B 24×32; C and D type a 24×33; D type b 24×34
- camera-wiki: the gate grows from 24×32 to 24×33 during the B; the D nominally 24×34, measured 33.5–34.5
- miyou55mane: IC 24×33.5, ID 24×34.5
- topgabacho: 24×33 and then 24×34 only with the E and F
- antiquecameras.net: a B at 24×33 (August 1948) and body 4371 at 24×34 (February 1949)
All agree the A is nominally 24×32, and camera-wiki says measuring the gate is how to confirm one; Leica Copies Japan reports Renaud Laemmli's measurement of a Model A at 24.5×32.5mm, so half-millimetre differences between sources may come down to how the opening is measured.
- Flash sync
- A bulb-sync contact from the first body: the ball in the shoe is labelled 'J Terminal for Flash Synchronizer' on the Model A instruction sheet (Leica Copies Japan); miyou55mane 'シンクロ接点がホットシュー（HS)にあり'; camera-wiki; the Ei Mook table gives FP
- Not a contact: English Wikipedia says the spring-loaded ball only secures an accessory in the shoe and 'sometimes mistakenly is assumed to be a flash synchroniser contact, which it is not'
Better supported: A contact, on the maker's own instruction sheet
- Slow-speed change (5 and 10 to 4 and 8)
- About serial 600 (English Wikipedia)
- 0800 or 0900 (camera-wiki, citing Photo Deal and antiquecameras.net)
- Model A type c, from 095x (Leica Copies Japan)
- From the start of miyou55mane's IB型, #0827
- Maker name on the top plate
- C.K.S. from about #1500 (English Wikipedia), from Model B type b at 174x after a blank type a at 1482–1516 (Leica Copies Japan), from about #16xx (miyou55mane)
- camerakids, from a reference book: the A, B and C types read 'MINOLTA-35 CHIYODA KOGAKU OSAKA' and later bodies 'C.K.S.'
Better supported: About
What reviewers say
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History
The Minolta-35 was Chiyoda Kogaku’s first original camera after the war: a Leica-thread focal-plane rangefinder that went its own way everywhere except the mount. It had a single window for focusing and framing, a back that hinges open, a fixed take-up spool, a self-timer and a contact for flash bulbs in the accessory shoe, none of which the Leica of 1947 offered. English sources date it to May 1947; Japanese ones to 1948, which is probably when it went on general sale. The bodies before the 1951 Model E carry no model name at all — only ‘Minolta-35’ and a serial number — and collectors have sorted them into Models A to D (Rajner and Aprà), which Japanese writers call I型 and divide as IA to ID at slightly different points.
The early story is the frame. Chiyoda chose 24×32mm, the so-called Nippon format, with a seven-perforation advance that gave 40 exposures to a cassette. Under the occupation, GHQ objected that Kodak’s automatic slide-mount cutters could not handle it, and the camera was enlarged in steps: the Model C of 1948 moved to eight perforations and 36 frames with a gate about 24×33, and the late Model D reached roughly 24×34. Leica Copies Japan reckons over 3,000 of the 24×32 A and B bodies were made. The sources disagree by half a millimetre and by a model on where each step falls, so measuring the gate is the surest test of an A.
The models differ in small things, and features arrived on the line as they were ready. The A is engraved CHIYODA-KOGAKU OSAKA; its first bodies have a lock on the slow-speed dial and speeds of 1/5 and 1/10, the later ones lose the lock and read 1/4 and 1/8. The B is the same camera engraved C.K.S. The C changes the advance and turns the slow-dial figures to read from above. The D adds strap lugs, moves the rewind release under the frame counter and dents the front plate below the mount. On the A and B the finder magnifies 0.33×, an effective base of 13mm and hard work with anything but the standard lens; English sources have a 0.7× finder from the C, Japanese ones only from the E. Tax-free CPO marks on the wind knob (Latin or katakana) and MADE IN OCCUPIED JAPAN on the base plate help date a body. Leitz Auction sold a boxed Model A with its Super Rokkor 45mm f/2.8 for €1,200 including premium, an auction result.
When buying, read the serial first; the A–D numbers run in one sequence, below about 1500 for an A and up to about 12,300 for a D. Check that the slow-speed dial, rewind knob and engraving agree with that number, because parts were changed at repair. The standard lens was the Chiyoko Super Rokkor 45mm f/2.8, and any Rokkor made for the Minolta-35 fits these bodies. Not every Leica-thread lens does. The self-timer sits close to the mount, so lenses with a low infinity lock near the flange — the Leitz Elmar 5cm and 3.5cm and the Hektor 2.8cm — will not screw on (topgabacho; e-ektra found the same with an Elmar and a Hektor). There are no frame lines, so lenses other than the 45mm need an accessory finder. The shoe contact is for bulbs and is not an X contact.
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.
Photographs
More sample photos elsewhere
- Leica Copies Japan: every type from A to IIB, with the top plates, dials, shoes and the Model A instruction sheet
- Collection Appareils (Sylvain Halgand): a Model B
- Collection Appareils (Sylvain Halgand): a Model C
- miyou55mane (ameblo): the I型 sub-types, IA to IF, with serials and photographs
These photographers keep all rights to their work — enjoy it at the source.
Live listings
- 【中古】 MINOLTA Minolta-35 C.K.S. ミノルタ レンジファインダー
- 【中古】 MINOLTA minolta-35 C.K.S. ミノルタ レンジファインダー
- Minolta-35 model C #9536, c.1949, MIOJ, 24x33mm, metal shutter curtains, Super Rokkor 45/2.8 #10178, cap, CLA'd 2023, Ex++
- Minolta-35 model B #1927, c.1948, MIOJ, 24x32mm, new shutter curtains, Super Rokkor 45/2.8 #3967, cap, case, manual, Ex++
Listings updated 2026-11-09. Links go to the shop or marketplace that carries the item.