Noctilux-M 50mm f/0.95 ASPH

Serial-range notes

the seven-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 4,057,001–4,080,000 for 2008, 4,080,001–4,100,000 for 2009, 4,100,001–4,115,000 for 2010, 4,115,001–4,130,000 for 2011, 4,130,001–4,210,000 for 2012, 4,210,001–4,280,000 for 2013, 4,280,001–4,400,000 for 2014, and 4,400,001 upwards for 2015 and after.

every row on the wiki's table

Not one of the four rows is an allocated block. All four are brackets around lenses people have found, and every figure printed against them is the width of the span rather than a count of lenses: 38,971 is 4117764 minus 4078794, plus one, and 8,799, 16,320 and 78 are the same arithmetic. The foot of the table gives the total as unknown, which is the honest reading of its own rows and rarer than it should be.

4120526–4120545

The twenty silver lenses, given on the wiki's variants line as a block of exactly twenty numbers with no year attached. The general year list puts them in its 4,115,001–4,130,000 band for 2011, not the 2008 this entry gives them; both readings are recorded. They also fall in a gap on the serial table, above the row that ends at 4117764 and below the row that opens at 4137638.

4104688 and 4138043

Two numbers the Leica Wiki flags on this page as stolen lenses, asking that they be reported if seen for sale. 4104688 sits inside the 2008–2010 bracket and 4138043 inside the 2011–2012 one. Both are worth reading off the front ring before money changes hands.

4138043 on two pages

The same number is attached to two different lenses on the same wiki, and carries the stolen-lens tilde on both. Here it falls inside the bracket labelled 2011–2012; on the 50mm APO-Summicron-M ASPH page it is printed as "~4138043", the opening number of that lens's only substantial row. Nothing on either page reconciles them.

4205351–4221670

The 2013 row straddles a year boundary. 4205351 falls in the general list's 2012 band and 4221670 in its 2013 band, so a bracket labelled 2013 opens in the year before.

4240704–4240781

The last row, 78 numbers wide and labelled 2014, with both ends printed inside the tilde the page's legend reserves for a stolen lens — where the other rows carry that mark against a single number in the total column. What it means across a whole range is not explained. The general year list puts both ends in its 4,210,001–4,280,000 band for 2013.

no block belongs to the general-production silver

The 11667 silver of 2014 has no serial range of its own. The two rows that mention silver at all, 4205351–4221670 and 4240704–4240781, are tagged black and silver together, so no number separates the finishes. Only the first twenty, 4120526–4120545, are silver alone.