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

Topcor 9cm f/3.5 / R Topcor 9cm f/3.5

Topcon · LTM + Exakta · 1956

Also known as: Topcor 9cm f/3.5 · Topcor 9cm f3.5 · Topcor 9cm F3.5 L39 · Topcor 9cm 1:3.5 · Topcor 1:3.5 f=9cm · Topcor 90mm f/3.5 · Topcor 90mm f3.5 LTM · Topcor 90mm F3.5 L39 · Topcor 3.5/9cm · Topcor 3.5/90 · Topcon Topcor 9cm f3.5 · Topcon 90mm f3.5 Topcor · Topcon 9cm f3.5 Topcor · Tokyo Kogaku Topcor 9cm f3.5 · Tokyo Kogaku Topcor 90mm f3.5 · Tokyo Kogaku Topcor 1:3.5 f=9cm · Leotax Topcor 9cm f3.5 · トプコール 9cm F3.5 · トプコール 90mm F3.5 · 東京光学 トプコール 9cm F3.5 · トプコン トプコール 9cm F3.5 · Topcor 9cm F3.5 Lマウント · R.Topcor 9cm 1:3,5 · R Topcor 9cm 1:3,5 · R Topcor 9cm f/3.5 · R Topcor 9cm f3.5 · R Topcor 9cm F3.5 · R Topcor 90mm f/3.5 · R Topcor 90mm f3.5 · R Topcor 90mm F3.5 · R.Topcor 9cm f/3.5 · R.Topcor 9cm f3.5 · R.Topcor 90mm f3.5 · R.Topcor 90mm f/3.5 · R. Topcor 9cm f3.5 · R. Topcor 90mm f3.5 · R-Topcor 9cm f3.5 · R-Topcor 90mm f3.5 · R.Topcor 1:3.5 f=9cm · R.Topcor 1:3,5 f=9cm · R Topcor 1:3.5 9cm · R Topcor 3.5/9cm · R Topcor 3.5/90 · Topcon R Topcor 9cm f3.5 · Topcon R Topcor 90mm f3.5 · Topcon R.Topcor 9cm f3.5 · Topcon 9cm f3.5 R.Topcor · Topcon 9cm F3.5 R.Topcor · Topcon 90mm f3.5 R Topcor · Topcor R 9cm f3.5 · Topcor R 9cm preset · Tokyo Kogaku R Topcor 9cm f3.5 · Tokyo Kogaku R.Topcor 9cm f3.5 · Tokyo Kogaku R-Topcor 1:3.5 f=9cm · Rトプコール 9cm F3.5 · Rトプコール 90mm F3.5 · R トプコール 9cm F3.5 · トプコン Rトプコール 9cm F3.5 · トプコン R.Topcor 9cm F3.5

Variants & identification

Variant Mount Years Serial ranges Production
Topcor 9cm f/3.5, early (前期), Leica screw mount LTM 1956 — —
Topcor 9cm f/3.5, later (後期), Leica screw mount LTM — — —
R Topcor 9cm f/3.5 (manual preset), Exakta-type bayonet Exakta 1957 — —
  1. Date. Screw-mount lens: Topcon Club says it had already been introduced, with the 13.5cm, in a 1956 magazine. Leica Copies Japan says it 'is thought to have been released in 1956 but could be earlier'. No end date is published. Leica Copies Japan shows the later chunky-ringed 9cm in a 1957 Asahi Camera advertisement of the lens range, and notes that Leotax, the main outlet for these lenses, went bankrupt in 1959. R Topcor: Topcon Club says it came out slightly later than the Topcon R, in 1957, the year the R appeared (トプコンRのデビューした57年に、わずかに遅れて発売された); its page on the R lists the 90mm among the preset R Topcors that appeared with the camera, and dates the R's announcement to December 1957. The Maxifiche dates the R Topcor series from 1957. No end date was found: the R Topcor 9cm is absent from Paillard Incorporated's mid-1970s US Topcon catalogue, which still lists the two R Topcor 300mm preset lenses, and Topcon Club says it is now seldom seen.
  2. Optics and specifications. Topcon Club says the R Topcor 9cm adapts the earlier rangefinder Topcor 9cm with a thicker barrel and no change to the optics (光学系には変更はない), and its page on the screw-mount lenses says that lens's construction was carried over unchanged to the R Topcor 9cm (このレンズの構成は後のRトプコール9cm f3.5にそのまま応用された); its lens-cut page adds that the Topcor 9cm was used unchanged as an R Topcor. Screw-mount lens: 3 elements in 3 groups, 201 g, 10 slightly curved click-stopped blades, f/22 minimum and a closest distance of 3.5 ft (about 1 m) on a feet-only distance scale are Manuell fokus's figures from one copy; Topcon Club gives no specification table. R Topcor: elements, angle of view (27°), aperture range and closest focus (0.9 m) are from the Maxifiche's R Topcor table; the three groups are Manuell fokus's figure for the screw-mount lens, carried over on Topcon Club's statement that the optics are the same; the ten blades are Topcon Club's. Topcon Club calls the R Topcor very light but gives no weight. The closest-focus distances differ between the two barrels (about 1 m against 0.9 m) and the weight is known only for the screw-mount lens, so neither is given as a figure for the whole family. No source gives a filter size, length or diameter for either version.
  3. Engraving. The Maxifiche says R Topcor focal lengths were marked in centimetres until about 1970. Topcon Club heads its entry 'R TOPCOR 9cm f3.5' and the Exakta lens list on ihagee.org gives the lens as a 90mm R.Topcor. No source says the R Topcor 9cm stayed in the range long enough for a 90mm engraving, and no such copy has been seen, so no variant is listed for it. The screw-mount lens reads 'Topcor 1:3.5 f=9cm'.
  4. Silver-nosed brochure lens. Leica Copies Japan reproduces Showa Optical Works (Leotax) brochures of 1955 or 1956 that show the screw-mount 9cm with a silver nose and the fine ribbing of the 13.5cm, and says it has not seen such a copy in the wild, so it is not listed as a variant. Its 'commonly found later version' is the chunky-ringed production lens. Leica Copies Japan suggests the two looks might be connected to the two coatings Topcon Club describes; Topcon Club's own early and later copies both have the chunky rings and differ in lettering and coating.
  5. Finder (screw-mount lens). The lens was sold with its own small finder (Topcon Club; MFlenses). Topcon Club finds the Topco Brilliant Finder sold with the 13.5cm, with bright frames for 5cm, 9cm and 13.5cm and parallax correction, far easier to use. Leica Copies Japan notes that the Leotax TV2 manual lists a 50/90/135 finder (B) and that it seems to have replaced the 9cm finder completely. Of the Leica-thread bodies linked here only the Leica IIIg has a 90mm bright frame; the IIIc, IIIf and the Canon IIB need an external finder. The R Topcor is focused and framed through the SLR's own finder.
  6. Which version fits which camera. The screw-mount Topcor fits only Leica-thread bodies (the Leica IIIc, IIIf and IIIg and the Canon IIB linked here), and the R Topcor only the Topcon focal-plane SLRs with the Exakta-type bayonet (Topcon R, RII, RIII, RS, RE Super, Super D, Super DM, RE-2, RE200, RE300). Neither version fits the other's cameras. The notes below on the Topcon bodies apply to the R Topcor alone.
  7. R (1957): the Maxifiche says the R's bayonet has no coupling of any kind and the body has no meter. A manual preset lens needs neither, so the R Topcor works fully, with a hand-held meter. Topcon Club photographs the lens on an R.
  8. RII (Automatic R), RIII and RS: these bodies add an internal stop-down lever for the F Auto-Topcors (Topcon Club, Maxifiche), which does nothing on a preset lens. The RIII's clip-on selenium meter and the RS's clip-on CdS meter are coupled to the shutter speeds, not to the lens (Maxifiche), so they work with the aperture set by hand.
  9. RE Super, Super D, Super DM and RE-2: the R Topcor has no meter coupling, so the TTL meter of these bodies reads only with the lens stopped down by hand, not at full aperture. Paillard describes the preset R Topcors it still listed (the two 300mm lenses) as designed for stop-down exposure measurement; it does not list this lens.
  10. ⁰ RE200 and RE300: their instruction book's lens table gives stop-down metering for the preset R Topcor 300mm f/2.8 and for the Macro Topcor 30mm f/3.5 and 135mm f/4, but does not list the 90mm. The R Topcor 9cm has the same kind of preset diaphragm, so stop-down use is expected but not stated.
  11. ¹ Ihagee Exakta bodies: the Maxifiche calls the R's mount a fully compatible Exakta bayonet and says older Exakta lenses with plain or manual preset diaphragms mount on Topcon bodies without difficulty. Topcon Club notes that Topcon put its release on the opposite side to the Exakta, so lenses worked by an external arm lose that function when swapped between the two makes. The R Topcor has no arm, and the ihagee.org list files it as a Kine Exakta-bayonet preset lens, but no source describes it in use on an Ihagee body.
How to tell them apart (expand)
  • Two mounts, one optical design. Leica 39 mm screw mount, rangefinder-coupled: engraved Topcor, never R Topcor and never Auto-Topcor, in a light aluminium barrel. Exakta-type bayonet for the Topcon R and later focal-plane Topcons: engraved R Topcor, with no AUTO, in a thicker barrel with a preset ring. They share the optics, so they draw the same way
  • Screw-mount lens: the aperture ring sits at the front and turns as you focus, so Tokyo Kogaku engraved the f-numbers on both its upper and lower faces (Topcon Club)
  • R Topcor: f/3.5 at 9cm. The Auto-Topcor 10cm f/2.8 of the same years is the semi-automatic short telephoto; Topcon Club thinks the R Topcor 9cm was its cheaper alternative
  • Not the C.Simlar 9cm f/4, the four-element Tessar-type telephoto Tokyo Kogaku made in small numbers around 1947–48 (Leica Copies Japan, citing Nekosan)
  • Not one of the large-format Topcors for the Topcon Horseman cameras, which sit in Copal shutters (Maxifiche), nor any UV Topcor of the leaf-shutter Topcons

Topcor 9cm f/3.5, early (前期), Leica screw mount:

  • Front retaining ring carries the same Tokyo Kogaku … Topcor 1:3.5 f=9cm lettering as the later lens, but cut shallow and thin-lined (Topcon Club's side-by-side photograph)
  • Coating only faintly amber when you look into the front element
  • Otherwise the same chunky knurled aluminium barrel as the later lens, with the aperture ring at the front turning with the focusing helicoid

Topcor 9cm f/3.5, later (後期), Leica screw mount:

  • Same front-ring lettering as the early lens, cut deeper and bolder
  • Strong amber coating

R Topcor 9cm f/3.5 (manual preset), Exakta-type bayonet:

  • Named R Topcor, with no AUTO: a manual preset lens, with a preset ring and a separate ring that stops down to the preset value (Topcon Club; Maxifiche)
  • Ten-blade diaphragm that closes to a near-circular opening (Topcon Club)
  • Aperture scale f/3.5 to f/22 and closest focus 0.9 m (Maxifiche)
  • Plain Exakta-type bayonet at the rear with no automatic-diaphragm plunger, lever or meter-coupling finger
  • A thicker barrel than the screw-mount Topcor 9cm f/3.5, which is a slim aluminium lens with its aperture ring at the front (Topcon Club)

Specifications

Formula
Triplet, 3 elements in 3 groups (the screw-mount lens's optics, carried over unchanged to the R Topcor)
Designed by
Kawase Suminosuke (河瀬澄之介) — barrel design of the screw-mount lens, in Alcoa aluminium (Topcon Club, citing Classic Camera Senka No. 45); no source credits the R Topcor's barrel; Topcon Club also credits him with the Topcon RE Super
Construction
3 elements / 3 groups
Aperture range
f/3.5–f/22
Diaphragm blades
10
Years manufactured
1956
Country
Japan
Coating
Amber on the screw-mount lens: faint on early copies, markedly stronger on later ones (Topcon Club); no source describes the R Topcor's coating
Material
Aluminium barrel on the screw-mount lens (Alcoa alloy, per Topcon Club); no source names the material of the R Topcor's thicker barrel

What reviewers say

Optical formula — Triplet, 3 elements in 3 groups (the screw-mount lens's optics, carried over unchanged to the R Topcor)

History

The Topcor 9cm f/3.5 is the short telephoto Tokyo Kogaku made in Leica 39 mm screw mount in the mid-1950s, mainly to be sold with Showa Optical’s Leotax rangefinders. A year or so later the same optics went into an Exakta-type bayonet as the R Topcor 9cm f/3.5, a preset lens for Tokyo Kogaku’s first focal-plane SLR, the Topcon R. This page covers both: one optical design in two mounts and two barrels.

Tokyo Kogaku had supplied the Leotax with lenses since the late 1940s under the names Simlar and C.Simlar, and Leica Copies Japan dates the change to the Topcor name to 1955. The 9cm and its companion, the Topcor 13.5cm f/3.5, were the long lenses of the new range. Topcon Club, the Japanese collectors’ site, says the 9cm had already been introduced with the 13.5cm in a 1956 magazine. Leica Copies Japan thinks it was released in 1956 but could be earlier. Optically it is a plain triplet of three elements in three groups, probably close in concept to Leitz’s three-element Elmar 9cm f/4, as Leica Copies Japan suggests.

What sets the screw-mount lens apart is the barrel. Topcon Club, citing the Japanese magazine Classic Camera Senka (No. 45), says its mechanical design was by Kawase Suminosuke, the engineer later behind the Topcon RE Super, and that he designed a lens barrel in Alcoa aluminium ahead of other makers. The site’s English caption puts it simply: the first lens in Japan to use aluminium. The lens is accordingly very light; Manuell fokus weighed its copy at 201 g. One quirk is that the aperture ring sits at the front and turns as the lens focuses, so the f-numbers are engraved on both its upper and lower faces to stay readable. Manuell fokus counts ten diaphragm blades, with click stops down to f/22.

There are two screw-mount versions, and both have the chunky knurled aluminium rings that Leica Copies Japan compares to the rigid Topcor 5cm f/3.5 of the Leotax K. Topcon Club photographs an early and a later copy together. On the early copy the lettering on the front retaining ring is shallow and thin, and the amber coating very faint. On the later copy the lettering is bolder and the amber much stronger, and Topcon Club finds skies come out clearer with it, though the overall rendering differs little. Leica Copies Japan also reproduces Leotax brochures showing a 9cm with a silver nose and the fine ribbing of the 13.5cm. It has never seen one in the wild, so that version is noted under the table rather than listed. No production figures or serial blocks are published. One copy shown on the MFlenses forum, with its finder and leather case, is No. 14289.

The optics outlived the rangefinder lens. Topcon Club says the R Topcor 9cm came out slightly later than the Topcon R, in the R’s debut year of 1957, and lists the 90mm among the preset R Topcors of 90, 135, 200 and 300mm that appeared with the camera. The French Maxifiche on Topcon also dates the R Topcor series from 1957. Topcon Club says Tokyo Kogaku took the screw-mount 9cm and adapted it for the SLR in a thicker barrel, with no change to the optics, and its page on the screw-mount lenses says the same from the other side. The Maxifiche gives the R Topcor’s specifications: three elements, a 27° angle of view, apertures from f/3.5 to f/22 and focusing to 0.9 m.

The R was launched with a semi-automatic Auto-Topcor 10cm f/2.8 as well. Topcon Club thinks the R Topcor 9cm was its cheaper alternative. It has a manual preset diaphragm with ten blades, which close to a nearly round opening, against the Auto-Topcor’s semi-automatic mechanism. You set the taking aperture on the preset ring, focus at full aperture and turn the second ring to stop down before the exposure. There is nothing in the mount for a body to work, so the lens behaves the same on every Topcon focal-plane body. On the R, RII, RIII and RS you meter with a hand-held or clip-on meter. On the RE Super, Super D, Super DM and RE-2 the TTL meter reads only with the lens stopped down by hand. The RE200 and RE300 of 1977–78 share the RE mount, and their instruction book gives stop-down metering for other preset R Topcors, though it does not list the 9cm. The Maxifiche calls the R’s mount a fully compatible Exakta bayonet and says Exakta preset lenses fit Topcons without trouble. Topcon Club warns that lenses with an external release arm do not work across the two makes, because Topcon put its release on the other side. The R Topcor has no arm, but no source describes it in use on an Ihagee Exakta. It does not fit the leaf-shutter Topcons (PR, Wink Mirror, Uni, Unirex, IC-1), whose UV Topcors are a different mount, and it does not fit a screw-mount camera, just as the screw-mount lens does not fit a Topcon SLR.

Reviews, all of the screw-mount lens, are favourable, with the limits of a triplet. Manuell fokus found it sharp in the centre wide open but soft towards the corners, sharp across the frame stopped down, and priced by its rarity rather than its performance. In Thomas Bernardy’s single close-up comparison on MFlenses it showed more contrast wide open than a modern Voigtländer Apo-Lanthar 90mm f/3.5, with no colour fringing out of focus. Topcon Club says the screw-mount Topcors as a group are prized for their sharpness and sometimes sell for more than the Leitz equivalents. Since the R Topcor shares the optics, it draws the same way.

The R Topcor is uncommon. Topcon Club calls it very light and easy to use, “but rather a lens for collectors”. Its English text says the author once saw a copy offered very cheaply and passed it by. Because the lens sold for so little in its day, he says, few are seen now. It is absent from Paillard’s mid-1970s US Topcon catalogue, which still lists both R Topcor 300mm preset lenses, which suggests it had left the range by then; the Maxifiche runs the R Topcor series as a whole to 1976. One owner on the MFlenses forum wrote in 2015 that he had paid “a bit over $300” for his R 9cm. That is what one buyer paid, not a list price, and no period price has been found for either version.

To tell the two apart, look at the rear and the name. The R Topcor has an Exakta-type bayonet, a thicker barrel and a preset ring, and reads R Topcor; the Maxifiche says R Topcors were engraved in centimetres until about 1970, and every source calls this one the 9cm. The rangefinder lens reads plain Topcor, is a slim aluminium barrel with its aperture ring at the front, and screws into Leica-thread bodies. When buying the screw-mount lens, look into the front element for haze and for which coating it has, and make sure the aperture ring clicks and turns cleanly with the focus. Check that the finder is included. Apart from the Leica IIIg, with its 90mm bright frame, screw-mount bodies need an external finder for this lens: its own small one, or the 50/90/135 multi-frame finder that Topcon Club and Leica Copies Japan describe. When buying the R Topcor, check that the preset ring clicks at each stop and that the stopping-down ring closes the blades to the preset value and no further. Check that the focusing turns freely: the same MFlenses owner later pointed to a copy on eBay with a stuck helicoid, and wrote that the cause is usually dried grease, grit, or a guide rail bent by someone using the focusing ring to mount and dismount the lens. Look for oil on the blades and haze or fungus in the glass, as on any lens of this age.

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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

More sample photos elsewhere

These photographers keep all rights to their work — enjoy it at the source.

Sample photo wanted — shot with a Topcor 9cm f/3.5 / R Topcor 9cm f/3.5? We'd love to feature it (with credit).

Live listings

Listings updated 2026-11-10. Links go to the shop or marketplace that carries the item.

Sources (13)

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.