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

Super-Angulon 21mm f/4

Schneider-Kreuznach · LTM + Leica M · 1958 · Symmetrical wide-angle

Also known as: Schneider Super-Angulon 21mm f/4 · Super-Angulon 2.1cm f4 · スーパーアンギュロン 21mm F4

Variants & identification

Variant Mount Years Serial ranges Production
Screw mount (SUOON) LTM 1958–1963 1604001–1605000 (1958) — 1,000 numbers, the only block marked S alone that is not disputed
1672501–1673500, 1674501–1675500, 1676001–1677000 (1959) — 3,000 numbers marked S+M, screw and bayonet together
2027501–2028000, 2035001–2036000 (1964) — marked S, but footnoted on both Super-Angulon pages as holding 1:3.4 lenses 		1,462 lenses (Leica Wiki)
M bayonet (SUMOM) Leica M 1958–1963 1645301–1647000 (1959) and 1714501–1717000 (1959) — 4,200 numbers marked M alone
1672501–1673500, 1674501–1675500, 1676001–1677000 (1959) — the three S+M blocks, shared with the screw lenses 		5,292 lenses on the model page, a figure the page itself doubts
  1. The Leica Wiki flags its own arithmetic here. It gives 1,462 screw and 5,292 bayonet lenses against a total of "< 27,000", and then says the bayonet figure is "low number, perhaps ca.20,000 based on assigned s/n list below — or more of the 1:4 lenses should be listed as the 1:3.4 lens or as R lens". Three possibilities, none resolved: the count is wrong, or lenses are filed under the wrong model, or under the wrong system entirely.
  2. The 1959 US catalog price was $240 for the lens; the IWKOO (12 502) hood and the ETBIX (14 565) leather case each listed at $2.40 that year (Ken Rockwell).
  3. Order numbers 11 002 (SUOON) screw and 11 102 bayonet, which Rockwell records as SUOON-M where the Leica Wiki gives SUMOM. He confirms independently that most bayonet examples can be dismantled back into screw-mount lenses.
  4. Rockwell measures 250.9 g against a specified 240 g, and records nine straight blades stopping to f/22, a single blue coating, and E39 filters — the only Leica 21mm to take the standard 39mm thread.
  5. A prototype Super-Angulon 4/21mm, no. 127-0003, carrying the non-standard engraving of the initial development phase, sold with a Leica Ic Betriebskamera and a prototype 21mm finder for €43,200 including premium at Leitz Photographica Auction 48, against an estimate of €28,000–32,000.
  6. The 27,000 is arithmetic, not an estimate. The twenty-two blocks on the Leica Wiki's table sum to exactly 27,000 numbers, which is the figure its total row prints and the "< 27,000 lenses" in its production-era line. Against that, the same line credits 1,462 screw and 5,292 bayonet lenses — 6,754 between them, leaving 20,246 numbers assigned to this model and attributed to no mount. That is the shortfall the page itself calls "low number, perhaps ca.20,000".
  7. A production span this entry does not carry. The Leica Wiki gives the era as 1958-1981, and its blocks run from 1583001 in 1958 to 3105001–3105500 in 1981 — eighteen years, against the 1958-1963 given at the head of this entry and on every variant here. Both are recorded; nothing published reconciles a five-year run with a table of blocks spread across eighteen.
How to tell them apart (expand)
  • A rear element that sits deep in the body: no metered M can read through it
  • 92 degrees diagonal from a symmetrical design, which is why it needs the depth
  • Focuses to 0.4 m, far closer than the rangefinder can couple — the scale goes where the finder cannot follow

Screw mount (SUOON):

  • 39mm thread

M bayonet (SUMOM):

  • A bayonet adapter that UNSCREWS, turning the lens back into a screw-mount one

Serial-range notes

1583001–3105500
THE RULE. Leitz never numbered a model from one and never put a date inside the number, and the Schneider-built lenses it sold were numbered out of the same running sequence as everything else in the catalogue. A number dates a copy in two steps: read the year off the general lens list on the Leica Wiki's serial-number links page, then refine it against the SN Start / SN End table on this lens's own model page. Twenty-two blocks are printed there, and every one of their years agrees with the general list to the number. A serial falling between the blocks belongs to some other Leitz lens, not to an undated example of this one.
the mount letter in the product column
The one thing the table does that the barrel cannot. Because the M version is the screw lens plus an adapter that unscrews, a lens in hand does not say which it left the factory as. The wiki's blocks do: (S) is screw, (M) is bayonet, (S+M) is both. Only 1604001–1605000 is screw alone and undisputed; 1645301–1647000 and 1714501–1717000 are bayonet alone; the three 1959 blocks 1672501–1673500, 1674501–1675500 and 1676001–1677000 are mixed and separate nothing. Fourteen of the twenty-two blocks carry no mount mark at all.
1645301 and 1717000
A coincidence that says how this lens was numbered. The general year list opens 1959 at 1645301 and closes it at 1717000, and those are exactly the first number of the M-bayonet block 1645301–1647000 and the last number of the M-bayonet block 1714501–1717000. Leitz opened and closed a year of its entire lens output on this Schneider lens.
1646337 and 1646339
Two lenses that contradict their own block. Leitz Photographica auction lot 87, in the 100 Years of Leica Camera sale, included "Chrome Super-Angulon 4/21mm no. 1646337" and "no. 1646339", both in M39 screw mount and both described as prototypes or samples differing from serial production. Both numbers fall inside 1645301–1647000, which the wiki marks (M) — bayonet. Prototypes need not obey the block, but the block cannot be read as proof of mount.
1967101–1968100
A thousand numbers claimed by two lenses. The wiki prints this block on both Super-Angulon pages and footnotes it identically: JCB has it as the first batch of the f/3.4, Puts has it with the f/4, which is where this page keeps it. The f/3.4 page adds that lens 1967952, inside the block, is a 1:3.4. And 1967101 is exactly where the general year list begins 1963, while both model pages date the block 1962. All three readings are recorded.
2027501–2028000, 2035001–2036000
Printed here as f/4 screw-mount blocks and footnoted "Schouten has lenses 2027728 & 2035381 as 1:3.4 not 1:4". The wiki's f/3.4 page prints the same two blocks with the same two lenses named in its own footnote. 1,500 numbers whose model neither page will settle.
2056001–2057500
The gap in the middle of 1964, and it is not a gap. This lens holds 2054001–2056000 and picks up again at 2057501; the 1,500 numbers between are the 21mm f/3.4 Super-Angulon-R's only substantial block, on the wiki's page for that lens. The M and reflex Super-Angulons were numbered alternately out of the same run.
2485201–2487200, 2613101–2615100, 2982601–2983100
4,500 numbers printed twice. All three blocks appear on this page as the f/4 Super-Angulon and again, identically, on the Leica Wiki's page for the 21mm f/4 Super-Angulon-R, where a footnote reads "-R missing in list - Lens nos. 2485676, 2613184, 2614565, 2982929 & 2983018 are -R". A second footnote here marks 2982601–2983100 with a double asterisk: "Westlicht has at least one in this batch as R lens". This is the mechanism behind the wiki's own hedge at the head of the page — that some of the 1:4 lenses "should be listed as the 1:3.4 lens or as R lens".

Specifications

Formula
Symmetrical wide-angle
Construction
9 elements / 4 groups
Aperture range
f/4–f/22
Diaphragm blades
9
Min. focus
0.4 m
Filter
39 mm
Years manufactured
1958–1963
Country
Germany
Material
Chrome-plated brass
Original price
$240 (1959 US catalog)

What reviewers say

History

The first 21mm for a Leica came from Schneider-Kreuznach, not from Leitz, and it is built the old way: nine elements in four groups arranged symmetrically about the aperture, which is how you get 92 degrees without distortion — and which requires the back of the lens to sit very close to the film. That geometry is the lens’s character and its whole compatibility problem. No metered M can read light past it.

Its mount is unusually clever. The M version is the screw-mount lens with a bayonet adapter that unscrews, so one lens can be moved between a IIIg and an M3 by a collector who owns both. Leitz did this with several lenses of the period, and it is one reason the production figures for this model cannot be pinned down.

Those figures are worth reading, because the source doubts itself out loud. It gives 1,462 screw and 5,292 bayonet lenses against a total of ”< 27,000”, and then admits the bayonet number looks low — “perhaps ca.20,000 based on assigned s/n list below — or more of the 1:4 lenses should be listed as the 1:3.4 lens or as R lens.” So either several thousand lenses are uncounted, or they have been filed under the f/3.4 Super-Angulon, or under the reflex system entirely. Somewhere between five thousand and twenty-seven thousand of these exist. That is the honest state of it.

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 Super-Angulon 21mm f/4
Super-Angulon 21mm f/4, 1959, with its finder and box (Sébastien Amiet) — sébastien amiet;l, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0)

Sample photo wanted — shot with a Super-Angulon 21mm f/4? We'd love to feature it (with credit).

Live listings

Asking price, USD: a median of $1,300 across 11 fixed-price listings on 2026-09-11 (middle half $1,100–$1,500). Tracked since 2026-09-06, 2 days: up 1% from $1,300.

By day
DateMedianMiddle halfListings
2026-09-11$1,300$1,100–$1,50011
2026-09-06$1,300$700–$1,50012

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: Biogon 21mm f/4.5 · Elmarit-M 21mm f/2.8 · Super-Angulon 21mm f/3.4 · Russar MR-2 20mm f/5.6

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.