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

Elmar 9cm f/4

Ernst Leitz · LTM + Leica M · 1931 · Four elements in three groups

Also known as: Leitz Elmar 90mm f/4 · Elmar 9cm f4 · Elmar-M 90/4 · エルマー 90mm F4

Variants & identification

Variant Mount Years Serial ranges Production
v1 LTM 1931–1951 — No separate figure published
v2 LTM 1951–1964 — No separate figure published
v3 — collapsible Leica M 1964–1968 — No separate figure published
  1. 35mmc's review of the collapsible M-mount lens gives production as almost eighty thousand 9cm Elmars for that era, counting the rigid lens of the same period. It is the only figure located for a model the Leica Wiki splits across four ordinal entries without publishing a number for any of them.
  2. The Leica Wiki does publish numbers for three of those four entries, and they can be set against 35mmc's figure. The 1933–1953 page gives 107,480 lenses; the 1954–1968 page gives 79,605; the 1964–1965 page gives 9,400 with fewer than 500 in screw mount on Westlicht's authority. Only the 1931 first version is left unenumerated. 35mmc's "almost eighty thousand for that era" is the 1954–1968 page's 79,605 to within four hundred lenses, which identifies where the review's number comes from.
  3. Those totals cannot simply be added. Three blocks — 1920001–1921000, 2088801–2090800 and 2097501–2097900, 3,400 lenses — are listed in full on both the 1954–1968 page and the 1964–1965 page, so the sum of 196,485 double-counts them.
  4. No serial block has been assigned to a variant in this entry, because the Leica Wiki's four-way split of the model does not map onto the three versions recorded here. Its pages divide the lens at 1933, 1954 and 1964; this entry divides it at 1951 and 1964. The mount-and-barrel markings inside the 1954–1968 table — M-collapsible, S-rigid, M-rigid, M+S-collapsible — are the finest distinction the published numbers support, and they cut across both schemes.
  5. The 1964–1965 page describes the lens as three elements in three groups, against the four elements in three groups every other 9cm Elmar page and this entry record. It also gives its production era as 1964–1965 while its own first three rows are dated 1962.
  6. The product column of all four tables reads "Elmar 90 mm 1:40" in most rows — a transcription of 1:4.0 with the decimal point lost, not a separate lens.
How to tell them apart (expand)
  • Engraved Elmar f=9cm 1:4, later ELMAR 1:4/90
  • The slowest 90 Leitz sold, and the smallest until the thin Tele-Elmarit

v1:

  • Long, slim black or chrome barrel

v3 — collapsible:

  • A collapsible barrel — unusual on a 90

Serial-range notes

100000–2156300
The rule: read the serial against the general Leitz year list, which runs continuously across every model, then against whichever of the Leica Wiki's four 9cm/90mm Elmar tables covers that number. The bands spanning this lens are 100000–135000 (1931), 135001–156000 (1932), 156001–195000 (1933), 195001–236000 (1934), 236001–284600 (1935), 284601–345000 (1936), 345001–416500 (1937), 416501–490000 (1938), 490001–538500 (1939), 538501–565000 (1940), 565001–582294 (1941), 582295–593000 (1942), 593001–594880 (1943), 594881–595000 (1944), 595001–601000 (1945), 601001–633000 (1946), 633001–647000 (1947), 647001–682000 (1948), 682001–756000 (1949), 756001–840000 (1950), 840001–950000 (1951), 950001–1051000 (1952), 1051000–1124000 (1953), 1124001–1236000 (1954), 1236001–1333000 (1955), 1333001–1459000 (1956), 1459001–1548000 (1957), 1548001–1645300 (1958), 1645301–1717000 (1959), 1717001–1827000 (1960), 1827001–1913000 (1961), 1913001–1967100 (1962), 1967101–2015700 (1963), 2015701–2077500 (1964) and 2077501–2156300 (1965).
Below 100000
The general year list begins at 100000 in 1931 and cannot date anything under it. The earliest 9cm Elmars are exactly there — the first version's recorded numbers run 78428, 94092, 94139, 96750 and 97117 — so for those lenses the year list is silent and only the model page's own rows apply.
94092
The one clean rule inside this model. The Leica Wiki's first-version page lists its variants as "Coupled and pre-94092 uncoupled versions": below 94092 the lens does not couple to the rangefinder, from 94092 it does. The 48 lenses between 94092 and 94139 are the first coupled block on record.
1572401
A second rule, and a practical one. The Leica Wiki notes on the 1954–1968 page that rigid lens heads above serial 1572401 are suitable for Visoflex use without modification. Below it, the head needs work.
566204 and 566318
Two lenses identified as 9cm Elmars inside serial ranges the Leica Wiki's tables assign to the Hektor 7.3cm.
657001–677000
20,000 lenses in 1948 — by a wide margin the largest single block in any of the four tables, and the first marked chrom alone. The preceding block, 645001–647000 of 1947, is marked black+chrom and is where the finish changes over.
556001–557000
1,000 lenses of 1940 marked black-WH, for Wehrmacht Heer — the only military block in the 9cm Elmar's tables, and the counterpart to the Luftwaffe and SS blocks in the 3.5cm Elmar's.
872001–880000, 1080001–1083000 and 1111001–1113385
The three blocks marked OPT — the ophthalmology version, 1951 and 1953. 13,385 serial numbers are covered, though the marking is shared with ordinary chrome lenses in each block rather than reserved.
450001–450500
Printed in the 9cm Elmar's own table as "Elmar 95 mm 1:50", a focal length and aperture Leitz never made. The page's footnote resolves it: lens 450068, inside this block, is recorded as an Elmar 4/9cm from the Fontenelle Archive.
135236 and 135864
Dated 1933 by the model table, but the general year list ends 1932 at 156000, which places both in 1932. The disagreement runs the opposite way to the usual one, where the model table is the later of the two.
1920001–1921000, 2088801–2090800 and 2097501–2097900
Three blocks that appear in full on two different Leica Wiki pages for this lens — the 1954–1968 table and the 1964–1965 table — with the same numbers, the same years and different product descriptions. 3,400 lenses are therefore counted twice across the pages' stated totals.

Specifications

Formula
Four elements in three groups
Construction
4 elements / 3 groups
Aperture range
f/4–f/32
Min. focus
1 m
Weight
340 g
Filter
36 mm
Years manufactured
1931–1968
Country
Germany

What reviewers say

History

The 9cm Elmar is the second lens most Leica owners bought, for thirty-seven years. Four elements in three groups at f/4 — Berek’s formula again, at a longer focal length — slow enough to be cheap and small enough to carry, and in the catalogue in one version or another from 1931 to 1968.

The Leica Wiki splits it into several entries in its indexes: an Elmar (I) 9cm f/4, an Elmar (II), a “90mm f/4 Elmar” and an “Elmar (III) 1:4 / 90mm”, occupying four separate ordinal numbers. What separates them is barrel and mount rather than glass, which is why they are gathered here as one family with variants — including a genuinely unusual last version from 1964 that collapses into the body, on a 90mm lens.

Its serial numbers cross with the Hektor 7.3cm, as that lens’s own page admits: 566204 and 566318 are recorded as 9cm Elmars inside blocks assigned to the Hektor. Leitz numbered lenses as they were finished, and the tables have been picking them apart ever since.

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 Elmar 9cm f/4
FS ETR 610 at Domodossola — Leica IIIc with an Elmar 9cm on Ilford Delta 100 (NAC) — NAC, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Sample photo taken with the Elmar 9cm f/4
MS Mythen at Rütli — Elmar 9cm on HP5 (NAC) — NAC, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Sample photo taken with the Elmar 9cm f/4
DS Stadt Luzern on the Urnersee — Elmar 9cm on HP5 (NAC) — NAC, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Sample photo wanted — shot with a Elmar 9cm f/4? We'd love to feature it (with credit).

Live listings

Asking price, USD: a median of $130 across 55 fixed-price listings on 2026-09-11 (middle half $99–$230). Tracked since 2026-09-06, 2 days: unchanged from $130.

By day
DateMedianMiddle halfListings
2026-09-11$130$99–$23055
2026-09-06$130$99–$23055

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: Elmar 10.5cm f/6.3 (Mountain Elmar) · Elmar 5cm f/3.5 · Elmarit 9cm f/2.8 · Macro-Elmar-M 90mm f/4

Sources (9)

Every page here is assembled from public sources, and the gaps are real ones. If you own this lens, 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.