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

Minox 35

Minox · Fixed lens · 24×36mm on 35mm film; the back and base lift away as one piece for loading · 1974

Also known as: Minox 35 EL · Minox 35 GT · Minox 35 ML · Minox 35 GT-E · Minox MDC · ミノックス35

Variants & identification

Variant Mount Years Serial ranges Production
Minox 35 EL 35mm compact 1974–1979 — No figure published
Minox 35 GL 35mm compact 1979–1981 — No figure published
Minox 35 GT 35mm compact 1981 from about 5,509,000 No total published for the model, but the only two volume statements in the whole family both attach to it: submin.com records that "from serial number 5509000 in 1985 the last 144343 had film speeds of ISO 25 to 1600", and the 1991 GT Decade was sold on over half a million GT units sold — see below
Minox 35 GT Golf 35mm compact — — 5,555 (submin.com)
Minox 35 GT Sport 35mm compact — — 5,555 (submin.com) — the same figure that page gives for the GT Golf, and probably for the same reason
Minox 35 GT Decade Edition 35mm compact 1991–1991 — 1,500 (submin.com)
Minox 35 PL 35mm compact 1982 — No figure published
Minox 35 PE 35mm compact 1982 — No figure published
Minox 35 AL 35mm compact — — No figure published
Minox 35 ML 35mm compact 1985 7,171,451 – 7,178,701 No figure published
Minox 35 MB 35mm compact 1985 — No figure published
Minox 35 MB Touring 35mm compact 1990–1990 — 3,333 (submin.com)
Minox 35 GSE 35mm compact 1991 — No figure published
Minox 35 GT-E 35mm compact 1988 — No figure published
Minox 35 Goldknopf 35mm compact — — 725 (submin.com)
Minox 35 GT-X 35mm compact — — No figure for the model. A 1995 sub-edition of 1,000 cameras is engraved 50 Jahre MINOX in the finder (submin.com)
Minox 35 GT-E (second version) 35mm compact — — No figure published
Minox 35 GT-S 35mm compact — — No figure published
Minox MDC Titan 35mm compact — — 2,328 (submin.com)
Minox MDC Collection, 24-carat gold 35mm compact — — 555 (submin.com)
  1. No total was ever published for the Minox 35, for any single model, or for the line. What exists instead is two partials and a set of exact edition figures. The first partial is a marketing statement: the GT Decade of 1991 was sold to mark ten years of GT production and, in submin.com's wording, over half a million units sold — one branch of the family, to one date. The second is much harder and is easy to miss, because it is filed under a film-speed change rather than under production. submin.com's page on the ISO-1600 GT states that "from serial number 5509000 in 1985 the last 144343 had film speeds of ISO 25 to 1600". That is a counted run: 144,343 cameras between a dated serial boundary and the end of GT production. It is the most precise number in this entry and nobody quotes it as one.
  2. The exact figures, all from submin.com: GT Golf 5,555; GT Sport 5,555; GT Decade 1,500; MB Touring 3,333; Goldknopf 725; MDC Titan 2,328; MDC Collection gold 555; GT-X 50 Jahre 1,000. Seven of the eight are limited editions. The MDC Titan's 2,328 is the odd one out — a catalogue model with a count, which is rarer in this segment than any of the editions. Note that the Golf and the Sport are almost certainly not two runs of 5,555: submin.com says the Sport was "also" an edition of 5,555, and the Deutsches Kameramuseum, comparing the two bodies, calls the Sport a Golf with a different word on the front.
  3. Published weights vary by model and are worth reading as such rather than as disagreement: about 190 g is the family figure (200 g with battery), Eckman weighs the ML at 181 g, and submin.com gives 194 g for the GT-E and 208 g for the Goldknopf with its data back.
  4. The lens is a four-element design of 35mm and f/2.8, called Color-Minotar on the early cameras and MC Minoxar with an integrated skylight filter from the GT-E. A commenter on 35mmc quotes Wikipedia to the effect that the type corresponds to a four-lens triplet like the Tessar, and that only the front element moves to focus. That is a quotation of an encyclopedia inside a comment thread, which is the weakest kind of citation in this entry; it is recorded because no better published account of the formula was found.
  5. The diaphragm has two blades and forms a kite. Bob Janes, writing at 35mmc, points out what that would mean for out-of-focus rendering and then dismisses the objection for a 35mm f/2.8 lens in 1974.
  6. Until 1995, English Wikipedia records, the Minox 35 was considered the smallest camera for the 35mm format; the Minolta TC-1 of 1996 took the title. Janes is sharper about it, calling the smallest-full-frame claim a conceit and a piece of marketing — and noting that the Minox wins on volume rather than on any single dimension against a Rollei 35 S.
How to tell them apart (expand)
  • A fold-down front cover that carries the lens out with it — the drawbridge that made the camera pocketable, and the feature every model in the line shares
  • A glass-fibre reinforced Makrolon body: this is why it is lighter than a Rollei 35, not merely smaller
  • Scale focus with no rangefinder on any model in the family, ever
  • A CdS cell at the edge of the lens, progressively shaded by the aperture ring as it closes down
  • A two-blade diaphragm forming a kite-shaped aperture

Minox 35 EL:

  • Dark red shutter release
  • Uncovered flash shoe on the original production
  • No model designation under the word MINOX on the inner body plate
  • No dot on the film rewind crank; the double-stroke advance is narrower than on later models

Minox 35 GL:

  • Bright orange shutter release
  • Covered flash shoe, with no white arrows
  • A 1.5 mm white dot on a wider, curved rewind crank — it turns as the film advances
  • Rectangular battery-test button

Minox 35 GT:

  • Yellow shutter release
  • A separate cable-release socket
  • A red LED over the letters NO in MINOX, lit while the self-timer runs
  • 35 GT on the lens cover and under MINOX on the inner front plate; a 2 mm silver-white dot on the rewind crank

Minox 35 GT Golf:

  • Green body

Minox 35 GT Sport:

  • Dark green, with Sport rather than Golf on the front; an edition number engraved on the top

Minox 35 GT Decade Edition:

  • Gold-coloured shutter release, in the manner of the Goldknopf
  • Larger presentation box with a limited-edition certificate

Minox 35 PL:

  • Green shutter release
  • Programmed automatic exposure with the aperture ring set to A

Minox 35 PE:

  • A full-size flash moulded onto the body rather than a tiny one built in
  • Three top-plate LEDs: slow-speed warning, battery check, flash ready

Minox 35 AL:

  • Black or white bodies; the white one carries a Fiat logo

Minox 35 ML:

  • A flatter top plate — the third-generation body
  • A row of red LEDs under a printed shutter-speed scale, in place of the swinging needle every earlier model used
  • A catch on the lens cover, which no later model repeated
  • PX28 battery instead of the PX27 of the EL/GL/GT branch

Minox 35 MB:

  • No P on the aperture ring or in the viewfinder — otherwise identical to the ML

Minox 35 MB Touring:

  • An edition serial number in red on the front of the lens cover

Minox 35 GSE:

  • Green shutter release and a green mark on the depth-of-field scale
  • Minotar lens; two CR1/3N cells in an adapter

Minox 35 GT-E:

  • MC Minoxar lens with an integrated skylight filter, in place of the Color-Minotar
  • Close focus of 0.7 m instead of 0.9 m

Minox 35 Goldknopf:

  • A shutter release of solid 14-carat gold
  • Jet black rather than the GT-E's charcoal grey, with a smooth surface and no white model name or control labels
  • Data back fitted as standard

Minox 35 GT-X:

  • DX coding, ISO 25 to 3200, defaulting to ISO 100 for undecoded cassettes
  • Grip burls on the front but not the back; silver-grey to steel-grey finish

Minox 35 GT-E (second version):

  • Grip burls front and back, under a soft-touch lacquer over the Makrolon — graphite grey, warm to the touch

Minox 35 GT-S:

  • Silver lacquer over the black Makrolon; smooth back with no ribbed thumb grip
  • DX coding, ISO 25 to 1600 with all intermediate values

Minox MDC Titan:

  • Front and rear panels of aluminium coated in Titanal, a titanium-aluminium alloy, over a Makrolon core
  • MADE IN GERMANY on the front plate beside M.D.C, where other models say MINOX

Minox MDC Collection, 24-carat gold:

  • Mirror-finish 24-carat gold, in a heavy wooden presentation box with a handling cloth

Serial-range notes

from 3,635,000
The EL handbook submin.com photographs, taken from camera 3,720,896, is captioned "From Serial No. 3 635 000" and dated May 1977 — a dated boundary inside the EL's own run.
from about 5,509,000
The point at which the GT's film-speed dial changes from ISO 25–800 to ISO 25–1600. submin.com dates it to 1985 and, unusually, counts what follows: "the last 144343" GT cameras. A serial boundary with a quantity attached is the only thing of its kind in this family. It cannot be turned into a last serial number without assuming Minox numbered one camera per digit and never skipped, which nothing consulted here establishes.
7,171,451 – 7,178,701
The ML's revised shutter, September 1992. A narrow block of 7,251 numbers, and the only place in this family where a mechanical change is bounded at both ends.
7,501,893
submin.com dates two further MDC variations to about January 1994 from this number, both carrying MINOX with M.D.C beneath it on the front plate.

Specifications

Format
24×36mm on 35mm film; the back and base lift away as one piece for loading
Finder
Illuminated bright-frame viewfinder, no rangefinder · no rangefinder image
Shutter
electronically timed leaf shutter · 1/500 s at the fast end throughout. The slow end is film-speed dependent on the early aperture-priority models — submin.com gives exposures up to 30 s at ISO 25 and about 1 s at ISO 800 for the EL — while the ML's specification quotes 1/500 s to 1 s at ISO 100 in aperture priority plus a programmed mode. · flash sync 1/30 s on the EL, set by a lever at the front of the hot shoe when a flash is fully inserted; 1/125 s from the GL onwards · self-timer
Film advance
double-stroke thumbwheel with a folding tab on the back; rewind by crank
Back
the whole back and the base of the film chamber lift away as one piece, released by a lever on the base
Meter
CdS cell at the edge of the lens, progressively shaded by the aperture ring, driving aperture-priority automatic exposure. ISO 25 to 800 in 3 DIN clicks on the EL and GL, to ISO 1600 on the GT from about serial 5,509,000 and on the ML, and by DX coding on the GT-X and GT-S. Backlight compensation from the GL; the ML adds an exposure memory on half-press.
Designed by
Richard Fischer — credited by Mike Eckman with designing the camera in Vienna; 35mmc says only that the idea came from a professor at an Austrian university — see disputed
Weight
190 g
Dimensions
100 × 61 × 31 closed; the lens stands 47 mm out in use and the open door reaches 85 mm mm
Country
Germany
Original price
US$183 at launch in 1974, per Mike Eckman. Later German list prices are better attested than American ones: 499 DEM for the GSE and 999 DEM for the MDC Titan, both in 1994. (today $1,160)
Accessories
FC35, MF 35 ST, MF35SF, MT 35, FC-E and FC-S flash units, model-matched across the line · Data back (standard on the Goldknopf, optional elsewhere) · Minox pocket tripod; leather ever-ready case with a tripod bush

A swinging needle against a 1/30–1/125–1/500 scale on every model up to the ML, which replaced it with red LEDs under a printed scale. Later models add parallax marks for 0.7 m.

Where sources disagree

Who designed and who built the Minox 35
  • "the idea for the Minox 35 came from a professor at an Austrian university and the camera was actually made by Balda, a German company" (Bob Janes, 35mmc, 2025)
  • designed in Vienna by Professor Richard Fischer, and made by Minox GmbH of West Germany (Mike Eckman)

Better supported: Unresolved

The two accounts are not strictly incompatible — a design bought in from Vienna and a contract build at Balda would produce both sentences — but no source consulted states both, and none of the specification sources mentions Balda at all. Eckman names the professor where 35mmc does not; 35mmc names the manufacturer where Eckman does not.

First public showing
  • photokina 1974, where the 35 EL was shown (35mmc; submin.com, which dates the whole range's introduction to 1974)
  • "the 1973 Photokina", where Minox debuted the ur-Minox prototype, with the EL on sale in 1974 (Mike Eckman)

Better supported: 1974 for the EL itself

The two claims may be about different objects — a prototype and a product — and the on-sale year is not in dispute. What is unresolved is whether anything was shown a year before, and no source consulted corroborates Eckman's date.

How many models the line contains
  • "the first of 20 manual focus Minox 35 models" (Bob Janes, 35mmc)
  • thirty 35mm cameras between 1974 and 2003, plus an APS model and six digital ones (submin.com); "as many as 30 different models" 1974–2004 (Mike Eckman)

Better supported: Both, at different scopes

The gap is the autofocus branch. Janes counts the manual-focus cameras this entry covers; submin.com and Eckman count the whole 35mm range including the 35 AF line, which is a different camera under the same family name.

What reviewers say

History

The Minox 35 is a plastic box with a drawbridge on the front. Fold the door down and a four-element 35mm f/2.8 lens comes out with it; fold it up and the camera switches off and goes flat. That is the whole idea, and it did not change across roughly twenty manual-focus models and nearly thirty years. What did change — the shutter release colour, the position of a dot on the rewind crank, whether the film-speed dial stops at 800 or 1600, whether there is a P on the aperture ring — is the entire content of a variant table, which is why this family rewards the kind of page a listing cannot replace.

Two things made it work. The body is glass-fibre reinforced Makrolon, and that is the reason it is lighter than a Rollei 35 rather than merely smaller: 190 grams, 100 by 61 by 31 millimetres closed. And the lens is genuinely good, which everyone who writes about the camera says in almost the same words. Bob Janes, shooting his father’s EL forty-one years after borrowing it, puts it plainly — it is all about the lens — after taking the trouble to measure the body himself and find it 1 to 3 millimetres larger in each direction than the official figures.

There is no rangefinder in any of them. Minox never fitted one, and the camera offers no help with distance at all: the front ring is a scale, hyperfocal setting is the working method, and metering is done by a CdS cell at the edge of the lens that the aperture ring progressively shades as it stops down. The diaphragm has two blades and makes a kite.

The line divides into three branches and one luxury offshoot. The EL, GL and GT are aperture-priority cameras on a PX27 cell, improving by accretion: the GL of February 1979 adds the backlight switch and 1/125 flash sync, the GT of September 1981 adds a self-timer, a separate cable-release socket and, from about serial 5,509,000, a film-speed dial reaching ISO 1600. The PL, PE and AL are the program branch. The ML of 1985 is the third generation — flatter top plate, LED readout in place of the swinging needle, program and aperture priority together, PX28 — and it is also the family’s reliability problem, with submin.com finding faults in ten of twenty second-hand bodies and Minox itself fitting a revised shutter in September 1992 across a block of 7,251 serial numbers. The GT-E of 1988 starts the modern branch with a multicoated Minoxar, close focus down from 0.9 to 0.7 metres and lithium cells, and the GT-X, GT-S and second GT-E carry it to the end of production in 2003. The MDC is the ML’s electronics in a Titanal shell.

Now the counting, which is what this page is for. No total was ever published: not for the family, not for any single model. Two partials exist. One is a marketing statement — the GT Decade edition of 1991 was sold to mark ten years of GT production and over half a million units sold, which covers one branch at one date. The other is buried where nobody looks for a production figure, on submin.com’s page about the GT’s film-speed dial: from serial 5,509,000 in 1985, “the last 144343” GT cameras took ISO 1600 instead of 800. That is a counted run of 144,343 bodies, filed as a specification change. It is the hardest number on this page and it is quoted by no one, which is a fair illustration of how this segment’s evidence actually behaves — the figures that exist are in the wrong drawer, and the figures everyone repeats were never in a drawer at all.

Against that sits a set of exact edition figures that most compacts would envy: 5,555 GT Golfs, 5,555 GT Sports, 1,500 GT Decades, 3,333 MB Tourings, 1,000 GT-X cameras engraved 50 Jahre, 725 Goldknopfs, 555 gold MDCs — and 2,328 MDC Titans, which is the interesting one, because it is a catalogue model with a count rather than a limited edition. All of them come from a single collector site. The Golf and the Sport carrying the identical 5,555 looked at first like a slip carried between two of its pages; it is not. submin.com says the Sport was “also” an edition of 5,555, and the Deutsches Kameramuseum, which has one, reports that the Sport is a Golf with a different word on the front. The likeliest reading is one edition under two names, which would mean adding them is double counting.

The origin is contested in a way that is more interesting than the specifications. Mike Eckman says the camera was designed in Vienna by Professor Richard Fischer and debuted as a prototype at what he calls the 1973 photokina. Bob Janes says the idea came from a professor at an Austrian university and that the camera was actually built by Balda, a German company — a claim no specification source consulted repeats, and one that would change what the MINOX on the front plate means. Both sentences can be true at once. No source found says both.

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 — but no human wrote these sentences.

Example photos

Sample photo taken with the Minox 35
Minox 35 ML — Hinnerk R, Hinnerk Rümenapf, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.5)
Sample photo taken with the Minox 35
Minox 35 PL — John Nuttall from Hampshire, United Kingdom, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0)
Sample photo taken with the Minox 35
Rollei 35 S beside a Minox 35 ML — Hinnerk Ruemenapf, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.5)

Sample photo wanted — shot with a Minox 35? We'd love to feature it (with credit).

Live listings

Asking price, USD: a median of $59 across 69 fixed-price listings on 2026-09-11 (middle half $38–$130). Tracked since 2026-09-06, 2 days: unchanged from $59.

By day
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2026-09-11$59$38–$13069
2026-09-06$59$38–$13069

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Related: Agfa Optima Sensor

Sources (26)

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 — corrections, serials and sample photos are all worth having.