Hektor 7.3cm f/1.9

Serial-range notes

the six-digit 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, 195,001–236,000 for 1934, 284,601–345,000 for 1936, 345,001–416,500 for 1937, 416,501–490,000 for 1938, 490,001–538,500 for 1939 and 565,001–582,294 for 1941. The lowest numbers recorded for the lens, 96492 and up, fall below the 100,000 floor where the general list begins.

before 166001

Puts's list begins at 166001 in 1933. Everything earlier in the Leica Wiki's table is compiled from lenses people have found, which is why those rows carry a plus sign — 111+, 1,399+ — rather than a total.

335754 and 335791

Two lenses identified as Hektor 7.3cm inside serial ranges the same wiki assigns to the Summar.

566204 and 566318

Two lenses inside Hektor numbering identified as Elmar 9cm f/4.

96492–96602, 120222–121620, 129006–129885

Three of the four rows below 166001 print a span width where a count belongs: 111 is 96602 minus 96492, plus one, and 1,399 and 880 are the same arithmetic. The fourth, 141596–141995, prints 274 against a span of 400 numbers and matches neither reading.

129006–129885

Dated 1932 by the model table; the general year list puts both ends inside its 100,000–135,000 band for 1931. It is the only row on the page where table and list part.

128355

The dated HEKON of Leitz Photographica Auction 45, delivered to a Darmstadt dealer on 25 June 1932, falls in the general year list's 1931 band and below every bracket the table prints for 1932 — the lowest of those opens at 129006. A number allocated in one year and delivered in the next, and a reminder that a Leitz serial dates manufacture rather than sale.

about 141750

The threshold the Leica Wiki attaches to its own illustration, on the line that lists the variants as "all-black, narrow chrome-band (shown), wide chrome-band": the drawing is of the version after about serial 141750. The number is given as an approximation and no block boundary falls near it; the closest number on the table is 141596, where a bracket around observed 1932 lenses opens.

141596–141995, 437001–438000, 538001–538500

Three rows tagged chrom-band with no width given, on a table that elsewhere says wide. They cannot be assigned to either banded version, and together they are 1,900 numbers across 1932, 1938 and 1939.

no block is tagged all-black alone

The all-black lens shares every block it appears in — 120222–121620 with the nickel band and a chrome band, 129006–129885 with a chrome band, and 166001–167000 with the wide chrome band. No serial range belongs to it by itself, so the barrel is the only evidence.

333001–336000

A 3,000-number Summar block printed inside the Hektor's own table and dated 1936. Its total is bracketed — [3000] — and left out of the sum at the foot, so the page prints a row it declines to count. The two Hektors known inside it, 335754 and 335791, are why it is there at all.

235001–236000 and 538001–538500

Two blocks that close exactly on a boundary of the general year list: 236000 is the last number of 1934 and 538500 the last of 1939, and each row carries the year that ends on it. Where a Leitz block ends on a round year boundary the two records cannot disagree.