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

Hektor 5cm f/2.5

Ernst Leitz · LTM + Leica fixed · 1930 · Six elements in three groups — three cemented pairs

Also known as: Leitz Hektor 50mm f/2.5 · Hektor 5cm f2.5 · HEKTO

Variants & identification

Variant Mount Years Serial ranges Production
Fixed to the camera (Model A) Leica fixed 1930–1931 — 1,330 Model A cameras carry it
Nickel, screw mount LTM 1930–1933 58604–93847
94086–96423
121331–125842 		Part of 10,600 lenses
Chrome, screw mount LTM 1933–1936 156001–156500
161001–162000
168001–169000
178001–179000 		No separate figure published
11 o'clock and 7 o'clock infinity locks LTM 1930–1936 — No figures
  1. The Leica Wiki's serial table is two tables under one heading. Its four rows below 156001 are brackets around lenses people have found, printed with dashes and carrying span widths where a count belongs; its six rows from 156001 on are allocated blocks. Only the second set is counted in the 5,600 at the foot, and only the second set can be read as production.
  2. Span and total do not match between the page's two halves. The summary line gives 1930–1936 and 10,600 lenses; the serial table's own foot gives 1933–1936 and 5,600.
  3. The 11 o'clock lenses carry a premium. Leitz Photographica Auction 45, lot 48: a nickel rangefinder-coupled 11 o'clock Hektor, serial 94461, delivered to Berlin on 10 December 1931 and graded A- with clean optics and both caps, realised €2,640 including buyer's premium against an estimate of €1,000–1,200 from a €500 start. Chrome sits far lower: Auction 46, lot 77 — serial 96413, graded B/A, both caps — took €600 including premium against the same €1,000–1,200 estimate.
  4. The chrome barrel may start earlier than 1933. Leitz Photographica dates lot 77 of its Auction 46, a chrome Hektor with serial 96413, to 1932, and records it as delivered to Berlin on 18 March 1932; the same catalogue entry notes the optics carry a later coating.
  5. The Hektors fixed to a Leica I are unnumbered. Leitz Photographica catalogues a Leica I Model C Standard outfit as carrying an "unnumbered nickel Hektor 2.5/5cm", and summichronica.com records the same for the Model A cameras, where the body carries the number instead. Interchangeable examples are numbered in the ordinary way — the Auction 45 lens is 94461.
  6. The Leica Wiki's serial table (read in the browser, 2026-09-10): production 1930–1936, 10,600 lenses in all; nickel until 1933, chrome 1933–36, with early '11 o'clock' and later '7 o'clock' barrels; six elements in three cemented pairs, f/2.5–18, 1 m, 21 mm filter, 190 g, codes HEKTO/KUP/CHROM. Assigned serial blocks 156001–156500, 161001–162000, 168001–169000, 178001–179000 and 183001–183100 in 1933 and 325001–327000 in 1936 total 5,600; the earlier lenses were numbered in the general sequence below 156001 and are dated only by known examples.
How to tell them apart (expand)
  • A 21mm filter fitting — the smallest in this catalog
  • Six elements in three cemented groups, the same construction as the 7.3cm Hektor

Fixed to the camera (Model A):

  • Permanently mounted on a Leica I Model A

11 o'clock and 7 o'clock infinity locks:

  • Early lenses lock at 11 o'clock, later ones at 7

Serial-range notes

the number on the front ring
The rule for every Leitz and Leica lens: the numbers run in one running sequence shared across models, so a serial normally gives an approximate date — but the sequence does NOT begin at 100,000 in 1931, and a serial usually identifies the model too. The register behind the published year list records reserved BLOCKS, each entered with a date, a range and a lens name, which is why per-model batch tables exist and why they are the better evidence where the two disagree. The date is when the block was reserved, not when the lens was finished. Date a copy by the year band it falls into. The bands covering this lens are 100,000–135,000 for 1931, 135,001–156,000 for 1932, 156,001–195,000 for 1933 and 284,601–345,000 for 1936. The lens is old enough to outrun the list at the bottom: the earliest numbers recorded for it, from 58604 up, fall below the 100,000 floor where the general list begins, and nothing dates them.
58604–93847, 94086–96423, 121331–125842, 131265–140256
The four rows below 156001 are not allocations. The wiki prints them with dashes, notes that they are compiled from known lenses, and puts a span width in the column where a count belongs: 35,244 is 93847 minus 58604, plus one; 2,338, 4,512 and 8,992 are the same arithmetic on the other three. The largest of them is more than three times the 10,600 lenses the page says were made altogether.
156001–156500, 161001–162000, 168001–169000, 178001–179000, 183001–183100, 325001–327000
The six real blocks, and they sum to exactly 5,600 — the total printed at the foot of the table, against 10,600 for the whole production in the page's summary line. Five thousand lenses have no allocated block, which is what the four bracketed rows below 156001 stand in for.
121331–125842
Dated 1932 by the model table; the general year list puts both ends inside its 100,000–135,000 band for 1931.
131265–140256
The row on which the finish changes — the only one tagged KUP/CHROM, nickel and chrome together — and a row that dates against the general list twice over. The table calls it 1933; on the general list 131265 falls in 1931 and 140256 in 1932, so the bracket straddles two bands and neither of them is the year printed against it.
94461 and 96413
Both auction lenses fall inside 94086–96423, the bracket the wiki dates 1931 and tags KUP for nickel. 94461, the nickel 11 o'clock lens of Leitz Photographica Auction 45, agrees with the tag and with a December 1931 delivery. 96413 sits ten numbers below the top of the same bracket and is catalogued as chrome, delivered March 1932 — a chrome lens inside a nickel bracket, a year later than the bracket's date.
326815
A lens the wiki's own footnote identifies as a Hektor 13.5 cm f/4.5, sitting inside 325001–327000. That is the last block on the page, 2,000 numbers dated 1936, and the same table counts all of them as 5cm Hektor production.
no number at all
The Hektors fixed to a Leica I are unnumbered — the body carries the number instead — so no part of this table reaches them, and the 1,330 Model A cameras are outside the serial record entirely.

Specifications

Formula
Six elements in three groups — three cemented pairs
Construction
6 elements / 3 groups
Aperture range
f/2.5–f/18
Min. focus
1 m
Filter
21 mm
Years manufactured
1930–1936
Country
Germany
Material
Nickel or chrome-plated brass

What reviewers say

History

The 5cm Hektor is the fast fifty before there was a fast fifty. At f/2.5 it is half a stop past the Elmar and half a stop short of the Summar that replaced it in 1933, and it is built the older way: six elements in three cemented groups, the same construction as the 7.3cm Hektor, rather than the air-spaced double Gauss that every subsequent Leitz fifty uses.

10,600 were made in six years, and 1,330 of them are not lenses at all in the usual sense — they are fixed to Leica I Model A cameras, where the Hektor was the fastest option Leitz offered.

Its filters are 21mm, the smallest fitting in this catalog, which is a problem now: nothing else takes them and few survive. Identification follows the same pattern as the Elmar of the period, nickel giving way to chrome and the infinity lock moving from 11 o’clock to 7.

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 wanted — shot with a Hektor 5cm f/2.5? We'd love to feature it (with credit).

Live listings

Asking price, USD: a median of $1,300 across 17 fixed-price listings on 2026-09-11 (middle half $750–$1,600). Tracked since 2026-09-06, 2 days: unchanged from $1,300.

By day
DateMedianMiddle halfListings
2026-09-11$1,300$750–$1,60017
2026-09-06$1,300$750–$1,60016

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

Show 15 more listings

eBay links are affiliate links. If you buy through one, Glass Bodies earns a small commission from eBay at no cost to you. It does not change which listings appear, their prices or their order — those come from the search and the sort described above.

Listings updated 2026-09-11. Links go to the shop or marketplace that carries the item.

Related: Elmar 5cm f/3.5 · Summar 5cm f/2 · Hektor 7.3cm f/1.9

Sources (7)

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.