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

Rollei 35

Rollei · Fixed lens · 24×36mm on 35mm film, removable back that slides off downwards · 1966

our own finding

Also known as: Rollei 35 T · Rollei 35 S · Rollei 35 TE · Rollei 35 SE · Rollei B 35 · Rollei 35 B · Rollei C 35 · Rollei 35 LED · Rollei 35 Classic · ローライ35

Variants & identification

Variant Mount Years Serial ranges Production
Prototype 35mm compact 1965–1966 0 2 (Rolleigraphy, from Prochnow)
'0' Series 35mm compact 1966–1966 3 000 001 – 3 000 200 200 — 120 chrome-plated brass and 80 black anodised aluminium
Rollei 35, made in Germany 35mm compact 1966–1971 3 000 201 – 3 311 000 312,000 in two runs — 8,000 to July 1967 and 304,000 to December 1971 (Rolleigraphy; English Wikipedia prints the same 312,000 as one figure)
Rollei 35, made in Singapore 35mm compact 1971–1973 3 216 570 – 3 499 999 185,000 (Rolleigraphy; English Wikipedia gives the same 185,000). Rolleigraphy prints the figure on the 3-million row and leaves the cell for the 6-million block blank, so reading it as covering both Singapore blocks is this project's inference, not the table's claim
Rollei 35, Singapore, 6-million block 35mm compact 1973–1974 6 000 000 – 6 299 999 Not counted separately — inside the 185,000 Singapore figure
Rollei 35 with Schneider S-Xenar 35mm compact 1972–1973 from below 3 225 301 – 3 499 999 30,000
Rollei 35 gold-plated, Germany 35mm compact 1970–1971 within 3 000 201 – 3 311 000 1,500
Rollei 35 'Made in Singapore' special 35mm compact 1971–1971 within 3 216 570 – 3 499 999 5,000, in two special orders
Rollei 35 T 35mm compact 1974–1980 6 000 000 – 6 499 999 440,000
Rollei 35 S 35mm compact 1974–1980 6 500 000 – 6 799 999 260,000
Rollei 35 S Special Edition 35mm compact 1978–1979 no serial number on the back 3,000 per Prochnow and per Afalter; a second Rolleigraphy row gives 5,000; Arthur Evans describes only the 1,500 olive-branch cameras exported to the United States
Rollei 35 S Gold Plated 24 Karat 35mm compact 1979–1980 0001 – 1500 (on the nameplate, not the body) 1,500
Rollei 35 Jubilee Edition '50 Years' 35mm compact 1979–1979 — 10 samples; no series production
Rollei 35 TE 35mm compact 1979–1981 coded nine-digit numbers inside the camera, starting 4xx xxx xxx 120,000
Rollei 35 SE 35mm compact 1979–1981 coded nine-digit numbers inside the camera, starting 4xx xxx xxx 150,000
Rollei B 35 / Rollei 35 B 35mm compact 1969–1978 — 78,000 in Germany, all chrome; 95,000 chrome and 118,000 black in Singapore — 291,000 in total (English Wikipedia)
Rollei C 35 35mm compact 1969–1971 — 9,200, all made in Germany
Rollei 35 LED 35mm compact 1978–1980 — 157,500
Rollei 35 Classic 35mm compact 1990–1996 coded (5)(6)(7).xxx.xxx 6,480 titanium, 1,120 platinum and 1,620 black metal — camera-wiki.org prints all three as the first, second and third models, and the same three figures appear on corsopolaris.net. submin.com gives only the 6,480 titanium and credits it to the Rollei Club page, which is no longer online
  1. The naming myth, corrected by Mike Eckman: the T and S suffixes did not arrive with the move to Singapore. Singapore production began in June 1971; the Sonnar-equipped 35 S appeared in September 1974 and the older Tessar camera was renamed 35 T at that moment, more than three years later. A Singapore-made camera engraved simply 'Rollei 35' is normal, not an anomaly.
  2. The 35 S exists because the first attempt failed. Zeiss was asked in 1971 for a five-element lens and designed one with front-cell focusing to match the Tessar's mounting; it would not focus sharply at close distances, mass production slipped a full year, and the project was restarted with a lens that moves as a unit. Rollei's head of development Richard Weiß drew the lesson that lenses must be examined sceptically even when Carl Zeiss made them.
  3. Rollei tried twice to give the camera a rangefinder. An integrated one would not fit around 1970; an external turning-prism arrangement of the kind Zeiss Ikon used on the Super Ikonta was tried and dropped when production moved to Singapore.
  4. Modern Photography's Olympus XA test of November 1979 is quoted as treating the Rollei 35 as the founder of the category — the pocketable full-frame 35mm beginning with it and holding the field alone until the Minox 35 EL. The magazine could not be read directly for this entry, and the two years attached to the quotation, 1967 for the Rollei and 1976 for the Minox, are both later than the launch dates every source consulted here gives: 1966 and 1974. The framing is worth recording; the dates are not.
  5. Silver-leatherette and gold-plated cameras are faked often enough that Rolleigraphy prints identification rules rather than descriptions. On the Special Edition the test is the absence of a serial number on the back; on the 24-carat cameras, non-original examples are simply known to exist.
  6. Two lens tests hide inside the model names. The Tessar focuses by moving the front cell only, which is not how a Tessar is normally focused — the standard arrangement moves all the groups together. The Sonnar moves as a unit. That is the mechanical difference behind the T and the S, and it is why the two lenses cannot simply be swapped.
  7. Three more counted runs sit outside the nineteen rows above, all from camera-wiki: a Rollei 35 S Platin Special Edition of 444 cameras, built in Germany in 1986 and 1987 with platinum-plated covers and lizard leather; a Rollei 35 Classic Gold 75th Anniversary of about 900 in 1995, marking seventy-five years of Franke & Heidecke — corsopolaris.net separately records a 500-camera Classic Gold, which may or may not be the same run; and the Rollei 35 Metric of 1991–2000, a Classic with a calibrated glass reticle and the lens fixed at infinity, for which camera-wiki records no quantity at all.
  8. weight_g here is 370 g, which is the original Rollei 35 without film — the figure Rolleigraphy repeats for the prototype, the '0' Series, the German and Singapore cameras and both gold runs. The family does not hold to it: the 35 T is 330 g in brass and 310 g in aluminium, the 35 S 345 and 325, the TE 330 and 305, the SE 335 and 310, the B 35 and C 35 270, and the 35 LED 240. A weight is a variant-level fact in this family, not a family one.
  9. The last of them were not made by Rollei as anyone in 1966 would have understood the name. DHW Fototechnik, successor to Franke & Heidecke, built Rollei 35s in small batches up to 2015, and Mint Camera announced in November 2023 that it was developing a new version with autofocus and a built-in flash.
How to tell them apart (expand)
  • The lens collapses into the body on a sliding tube, and the shutter cannot fire until it is out — the mechanism physically prevents it
  • Shutter speed on one wheel and aperture on the other, flanking the lens on the front of the body, in the manner of a Rolleiflex TLR
  • The hot shoe is on the BASE. Using flash means turning the camera upside down to get the light above the lens
  • No rangefinder: a distance scale on the lens barrel, read through a cutout, and a meter needle read on the top plate before the camera comes to the eye
  • The back does not hinge — it slides down and comes away completely, like a Contax

Prototype:

  • Chrome-plated brass; serial number 0

'0' Series:

  • Chromed-metal rewind-crank bearing and a back lock that is not V-shaped
  • 370 g without film

Rollei 35, made in Germany:

  • Engraved 'Made in Germany by Rollei – Compur – Gossen – Zeiss' on the first 8,000; 'Made in Germany by Rollei' from August 1967
  • Carl Zeiss Tessar 40mm f/3.5 or Opton Te 40mm f/3.5
  • Slot-drive screws throughout

Rollei 35, made in Singapore:

  • Engraved 'Made by Rollei Singapore' on the back
  • Carl Zeiss Tessar or Opton Te until April 1973, then a Rollei-made Tessar

Rollei 35, Singapore, 6-million block:

  • Rollei Tessar 40mm f/3.5, Rollei-Compur shutter made by Rollei Singapore

Rollei 35 with Schneider S-Xenar:

  • Schneider S-Xenar 40mm f/3.5 in place of the Tessar
  • The first Rollei-designed shutters, made by Copal in Japan
  • About 200 black bodies with brown leather

Rollei 35 gold-plated, Germany:

  • Gold-plated brass covers; 370 g without film

Rollei 35 'Made in Singapore' special:

  • Black; 370 g without film

Rollei 35 T:

  • Rollei Tessar 40mm f/3.5
  • Chrome-plated brass 330 g, bright aluminium 310 g

Rollei 35 S:

  • Sonnar 40mm f/2.8 marked Rollei-HFT; the whole lens moves when focusing, unlike the Tessar
  • Chrome-plated brass 345 g, aluminium 325 g — a weight difference that identifies the covers

Rollei 35 S Special Edition:

  • Silver leatherette over chrome-plated brass, with an owner's nameplate on the back
  • Olive branches engraved on the US-market cameras
  • 340 g without film

Rollei 35 S Gold Plated 24 Karat:

  • Gold-plated brass with brown leather and a nameplate carrying its own number
  • 340 g without film

Rollei 35 Jubilee Edition '50 Years':

  • Engraved 'Rollei 35' with no T, on a camera carrying the S-Xenar
  • Black with silver leatherette and olive branches around a '50'

Rollei 35 TE:

  • Three exposure LEDs in the viewfinder in place of the top-plate needle
  • PX 27 5.6 V battery, changed without opening the film compartment
  • Lens-barrel release moved to the front; exterior lettering printed rather than engraved
  • Free-turning aperture wheel with no click stops

Rollei 35 SE:

  • Sonnar 40mm f/2.8 Rollei-HFT with the TE's LED metering
  • Bright aluminium top covers exist in very small numbers

Rollei B 35 / Rollei 35 B:

  • Zeiss Triotar 40mm f/3.5 triplet
  • Uncoupled selenium meter, no battery
  • Aperture control moved onto the lens tube; the lens sits slightly proud when collapsed

Rollei C 35:

  • Zeiss Triotar 40mm f/3.5 and no meter of any kind

Rollei 35 LED:

  • Zeiss Triotar 40mm f/3.5 with three viewfinder LEDs and a PX 27 battery

Rollei 35 Classic:

  • Hot shoe on the top plate rather than the base — the one change every owner notices
  • Lens release moved to the front, as on the TE and SE
  • Sonnar 40mm f/2.8 HFT; 370 g; 100.8 × 44.8 × 70.8 mm

Serial-range notes

3 000 001 – 3 000 200
The '0' Series of July to September 1966: 120 chrome and 80 black. About 60 were dismantled for research and no longer exist.
3 000 201 – 3 311 000
German production. The first 8,000, to July 1967, carry the four-name signature 'Made in Germany by Rollei – Compur – Gossen – Zeiss'; 304,000 follow marked only 'Made in Germany by Rollei'. The 1,500 gold-plated cameras of 1970–71 are numbered from inside this same block.
from about 3 029 230
March 1968: the rewind-crank bearing changes from chromed metal to black polymer and the back lock becomes V-shaped. Prochnow's dating, and it is not clean — Honeywell- badged German cameras at 3 065 244 and 3 087 115 both have the old non-V lock, one with a chrome bearing and one with a black one.
from about 3 039 229
May 1968: inner gears in organic polymer.
from 3 082 000
September 1968: Carl Zeiss adds a UV-blocking layer to the cement of the Tessar's rear doublet, and the external Rollei H1 filter stops being necessary. The clearest dated optical change in the family.
3 216 570 – 3 499 999
Singapore. Factory records give 3 312 000 as the start; cameras engraved 'Made by Rollei Singapore' are documented at 3 216 570, 3 225 301, 3 239 707, 3 275 935 and 3 287 546, all below it.
6 000 000 – 6 299 999
The second Singapore block for the Rollei 35, October 1973 to August 1974, with Rollei-made Tessars.
6 000 000 – 6 499 999
Rollei 35 T. The printed start is the same number the block above starts at, and not all the numbers in the range were used.
6 500 000 – 6 799 999
Rollei 35 S. Also not fully used, per Prochnow.
no number on the back
From about 1979 some 35 S cameras were finished without a body serial number, and the S Special Edition and Jubilee cameras never had one. A silver-leatherette camera WITH a number on the back is a fake.
0001 – 1500
The gold-plated 24-carat 35 S, numbered on the owner's nameplate rather than the body.
4xx xxx xxx
Nine-digit coded numbers inside the TE and SE, which carry no external serial.

Specifications

Format
24×36mm on 35mm film, removable back that slides off downwards
Finder
Optical viewfinder, no rangefinder and no framelines · 0.62× magnification · no rangefinder image
Shutter
Between-lens leaf, built to Heinz Waaske's patent: the timing clockwork is fixed in the body and the blades sit in the moving lens tube, coupled by shafts, so the tube can only retract once the shutter is cocked and the two halves have uncoupled. Compur, then Rollei-Compur made by Prontor, then by Rollei Singapore; Copal-built Rollei shutters on the S-Xenar cameras · B, 1/2 – 1/500 on the Rollei 35, 35 T and 35 S; 1/30 – 1/500 and B on the B 35, C 35 and 35 LED · no self-timer
Film advance
Single-stroke lever on the top left, where the convention of the period put it on the right, running a five-tooth sprocket wheel rather than the usual eight — Waaske patented the arrangement to save space. The film sits on the right of the gate, so frames lie upside down relative to the film's own edge printing
Back
Removable — slides downwards and comes off completely
Meter
Coupled CdS cell by Gossen with a match-needle read on the top plate, powered by a 1.35 V PX 13 / PX 625 / MR-9 mercury cell, on the Rollei 35, 35 T and 35 S. Selenium and uncoupled on the B 35 / 35 B; none at all on the C 35; electronically coupled CdS with three viewfinder LEDs and a 5.6 V PX 27 cell on the 35 LED, TE and SE. Selenium was costed against CdS in August 1966 and lost — Gossen quoted the same measuring range for both, and CdS won on looks, shock resistance and advertising copy
Designed by
Waaske Heinz — the camera: conceived it in 1962 in his own living room while chief engineer at Wirgin, and carried it through to production at Rollei · Moeckl Ernst — revised the housing at Rollei, tightening the edge radius to make the body smaller still
Weight
370 g
Dimensions
97 × 32 × 60 (W × D × H), Rollei 35; 100 × 44 × 70 for the Classic (camera-wiki) mm
Country
Germany (Braunschweig) 1966–1971 and 1990–1996; Singapore 1971–1981
Original price
487 DM chrome and 537 DM black at launch in 1966, falling to 460 and 520 DM for Singapore-made cameras. The 35 S was 470 DM chrome and 496 DM black in 1976. The TE and SE launched at 298 and 398 DM, were 248 and 298 DM in mid-1982 and 198 DM at the end of 1983 as stock was cleared. The B 35 was 255.30 DM, the C 35 222.90 DM, the 35 LED 229 DM. The Classic was 2,800 DEM in 1996

Finder magnification 0.62 with a 12 × 18 mm window and close-focusing marks from the end of 1970, which is the change Rolleigraphy dates. camera-wiki says the magnification before that redesign was 0.8; Rolleigraphy gives no figure for the earlier finder.

Figures we worked out rather than found: 312,000 Germany + 215,000 Singapore = 527,000 for the original Rollei 35. camera-wiki publishes the two run figures; the addition is this project's. · Every published run figure summed — 312,000 + 185,000 + 30,000 + 440,000 + 260,000 + 120,000 + 150,000 + 291,000 (B 35 / 35 B) + 9,200 (C 35) + 157,500 (35 LED) — comes to 1,954,700, before any special edition. Adding the prototypes, the '0' Series, the two gold runs, the Singapore special, the Special Edition at the lower 3,000, and the ten Jubilee samples gives 1,965,912; the three Classic finishes at 6,480 + 1,120 + 1,620 take it to 1,975,132. No source performs this addition, and it moves with which Special Edition figure is used. · Of the family total, the models with no meter or an uncoupled selenium one — B 35 / 35 B, C 35 and 35 LED — account for 457,700 cameras, about 23 per cent. The Triotar triplet is therefore the second most common lens in the family after the Tessar, ahead of the Sonnar.

Where sources disagree

Rollei 35 (original model), Singapore production and family total
  • 185,000 Tessar cameras plus 30,000 with the Schneider S-Xenar (English Wikipedia's wording; Rolleigraphy prints them as two rows with overlapping serial ranges)
  • 215,000 made in Singapore in total, of which 30,000 with the S-Xenar (camera-wiki.org)

Better supported: They agree — 215,000 is 185,000 plus 30,000

Read together, the two sources put the S-Xenar cameras inside the Singapore total and the original model at 527,000 with the 312,000 German cameras. Worth stating because a figure of 497,000 — the same sum with the S-Xenars left out — circulates in English write-ups and appears in no source consulted here, English Wikipedia included. What Rolleigraphy does leave open is narrower: its 185,000 sits on the 3-million row, and the cell for the second Singapore block, 6 000 000 – 6 299 999, is blank.

Rollei 35 S Special Edition, number made
  • 3,000 for the silver-leatherette camera carrying the US olive branches, and 5,000 for the plain silver-leatherette camera — two rows on Rolleigraphy's table, both credited there to Prochnow
  • 3,000 for the whole limited series, of which 1,500 US cameras took the olive branch (Udo Afalter)
  • 1,500 (Arthur Evans, who describes only the olive-branch cameras exported to the United States and gives no total, and does not describe the other version)

Better supported: Unresolved

The 3,000 and the 5,000 are not rival totals for one camera: Rolleigraphy prints them as two versions of the edition, which is why they cannot simply be reconciled against Afalter's single 3,000 for the series. Rolleigraphy's own note says the sources do not agree, that the edition sold badly and that perhaps not all the planned cameras were built. US cameras were still on discount-store shelves in 1983.

Start of Singapore production
  • No. 3 312 000 (Rollei factory records, as cited by Prochnow)
  • At or below no. 3 216 570 (Rolleigraphy, from cameras engraved 'Made by Rollei Singapore')

Better supported: The documented cameras

Prochnow himself says the factory records are wrong and prints photographs of boxed Singapore cameras at 3 239 707 and 3 225 301. Stutterheim has since been sent details of one at 3 216 570 with a Carl Zeiss Tessar. The gap is about 95,000 numbers, which is why the Germany/Singapore split cannot be settled by serial number alone.

Family total production
  • About 2 million over 30 years (English Wikipedia)
  • Over 1.5 million from 1966 to 1981 (Mike Eckman)

Better supported: Neither — they are measuring different spans

Eckman's window stops in 1981 with the end of Singapore production and is stated as a floor, so the two are not strictly in conflict. Neither figure is sourced to a factory total; both are summaries of the same published run figures.

What reviewers say

History

Most cameras in this section have no numbers behind them at all. This one has a ledger. Claus Prochnow worked at Rollei and wrote the factory’s history from its records; Ferdi Stutterheim has transcribed the Rollei 35 tables model by model, with dates, quantities and serial ranges, and annotated them where owners have sent him cameras that contradict the records. The result is that a Rollei 35 can be placed to a production run, often to a month, and sometimes to a specific mechanical change — and that is why this family gets a single long page instead of being split by lens. Splitting it would break the one table in this catalogue that is worth reading end to end.

The camera itself came out of a living room. Heinz Waaske, chief engineer at Wirgin, decided around 1960 that people buying 16mm subminiatures wanted small cameras rather than small negatives, and drew a full-frame 35mm body one third the volume of the viewfinder cameras then on sale. He built it in his spare time. When he showed it to Heinrich Wirgin, the reply was a complaint about wasted workshop time and the news that the firm was leaving the camera business altogether. Ludwig Leitz saw it and passed. Kodak saw it and passed. Waaske joined Rollei in January 1965, and in March Heinrich Peesel — managing director for one month — caught sight of the prototype by accident and ordered it into production, on the condition that every part come from Rollei’s own suppliers. That condition is why the camera has a Zeiss Tessar rather than a Steinheil Cassar, a Gossen meter rather than a Metrawatt one, and a Compur shutter.

The shutter is the piece of engineering the rest depends on. There was no room for a normal leaf shutter around a lens that retracts into the body, so Waaske split it: the timing clockwork bolts into the body, the blades ride in the moving tube, and shafts couple the two. The tube can only be pushed home when the shutter is cocked and the halves have disengaged, which is also why the camera cannot fire with the lens collapsed. The film path is equally unorthodox — a five-tooth sprocket where everyone else used eight, the wind lever on the left, the cassette on the right, and frames that consequently sit upside down against the film’s own edge printing. The back slides off rather than hinging. The hot shoe is underneath, so flash means inverting the camera.

Nineteen rows follow below, and the shape of the family is worth stating before reading them. There are three lenses: a four-element Tessar that focuses by moving its front cell alone, which is not how a Tessar is usually focused; a five-element Sonnar that moves as a unit, and which took an extra year to arrive because Zeiss’s first attempt at it would not focus closely; and a Triotar triplet on the cheap models. There are two factories, Braunschweig to 1971 and Singapore to 1981, with a coda in Braunschweig from 1990. And there are two metering generations, the top-plate match needle and the three viewfinder LEDs of the TE, SE and LED models.

Then there is the arithmetic, which is where a catalogue earns its keep. A figure of 497,000 for the original Rollei 35 circulates in English write-ups, usually against 527,000, as though two sources disagreed. Neither number is printed by anything consulted here. What is printed is three runs: 312,000 in Germany, 185,000 in Singapore, and 30,000 with the Schneider S-Xenar. English Wikipedia writes the Singapore side as “185,000 plus 30,000 with S-Xenar”; camera-wiki writes it as “215,000 units (of which 30,000 with the S-Xenar lens)”, which is the same sum performed. Both therefore put the S-Xenar cameras inside the Singapore total, and the original model at 527,000. The 497,000 is that sum with the Schneider cameras dropped, and it has no source behind it. What genuinely is open is smaller and duller: Rolleigraphy’s 185,000 sits on the 3-million serial row, and the cell for the second Singapore block is blank.

The same care is needed on the family total. About two million over thirty years is the figure usually given; over 1.5 million through 1981 is the other. Adding every published run figure gives 1,954,700 before special editions, 1,965,912 with the small runs, and 1,975,132 once the three Classic finishes are counted — which is where the round two million comes from, and also shows that the smaller number is a floor for a shorter period rather than a contradiction. Two of the special runs — the 1,500 gold German cameras and the 5,000 black Singapore ones — carry serials from inside the ordinary blocks, so they may already be counted in the main figures. Nobody says.

What is genuinely unsettled is where Singapore production starts. Rollei’s own factory records say number 3 312 000. Prochnow says the records are wrong, and prints pictures of Singapore-engraved cameras at 3 239 707 and 3 225 301; Stutterheim has since documented one at 3 216 570 with a German Carl Zeiss Tessar in it. That is about 95,000 numbers of uncertainty, and it means the country of manufacture of a mid-block Rollei 35 has to be read off the engraving on the back rather than calculated from the number. Which is a fair summary of this whole family: the tables are extraordinarily good, and they still do not answer everything a person holding the camera wants to know.

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 Rollei 35
Rollei 35 — Don DeBold from San Jose, CA, USA, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0)
Sample photo taken with the Rollei 35
Rollei 35 T, Singapore-made — Blameless, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Sample photo taken with the Rollei 35
Rollei 35 S with a matchstick for scale — Hinnerk R, Hinnerk Rümenapf, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)

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

Live listings

Asking price, USD: a median of $240 across 41 fixed-price listings on 2026-09-11 (middle half $130–$320). Tracked since 2026-09-06, 3 days: down 6% from $250.

By day
DateMedianMiddle halfListings
2026-09-11$240$130–$32041
2026-09-08$250$200–$36034
2026-09-06$250$200–$36034

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Related: Agfa Optima Sensor

Sources (12)

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.