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

Summaron 3.5cm f/3.5

Ernst Leitz · LTM + Leica M · 1946 · Double Gauss

Also known as: Leitz Summaron 35mm f/3.5 · Summaron 3.5cm f3.5 · Summaron-M 35 · ズマロン 35mm F3.5

Variants & identification

Variant Mount Years Serial ranges Production
Screw mount, A36 fitting LTM 1946–1956 — The early part of about 122,021 lenses
Screw mount, E39 thread LTM 1956–1960 — No separate figure published
M bayonet (SOONC-M) Leica M 1954–1960 1178501–1182000 No separate figure published
M3 version with goggles (SOONC-MW) Leica M 1956–1960 1360001–1363000 No separate figure published
M2 version (SOONC-MT) Leica M 1958–1960 — No separate figure published
  1. Prototype Summarons carry a serial block of their own, 00001xx rather than the seven-figure production numbers. Leitz Photographica has sold two: no. 0000117, an M3 goggled prototype with black painted goggles and engravings unlike the production lenses, from Paul-Henry van Hasbroeck's own collection and illustrated in his book at p.157, which realised €20,400 against a €10,000–12,000 estimate; and no. 0000125, whose barrel has a larger light baffle than the production model, which realised €11,400 against €12,000–14,000. CollectiBlend's price guide puts the whole prototype run at ten lenses, numbers 0000116–0000125.
  2. An ordinary example makes a fraction of that. Ostlicht sold a mint 1953 screw-mount Summaron, no. 1106199, complete with its ITDOO hood, caps and black bakelite box, for €300 — the start price, and below the €500–700 estimate.
  3. Leitz Photographica's 45th auction sold both ordinary mounts in the same session and they came out within a fifth of each other: the screw-mount SOONC at lot 42 made €660 and the M-bayonet SOONC-M at lot 156 made €780, both against a €600–700 estimate. Four figures across two auction houses put an ordinary Summaron between €300 and €780 — two orders of magnitude below the prototypes, and the switch from thread to bayonet is worth about €120 of it. The auction house also catalogues these lenses by the same SOONC and SOONC-M code words this entry uses to separate the variants.
  4. The serial list is internally consistent, which is rarer than it sounds. Its 122,021 assigned numbers are the exact sum of its own Summaron blocks once the two rows it attributes to an Elmar and a Summicron are dropped, and the same figure is printed at the head of the page as an upper bound on production. It is a ceiling on numbers issued, not a count of lenses built.
  5. The published blocks run 1949–1959 against the page's own 1946–1960 production era, so the first three years and the last carry no serial evidence at all.
  6. No block on the list is identified as an M2 version. The SOONC-MT 11305 of 1958 is named in the page's order numbers and nowhere in its serial table, so a plain-barrel M lens cannot be told from an M3 lens stripped of its goggles by number alone.
How to tell them apart (expand)
  • Engraved Summaron f = 3.5 1:3.5, Ernst Leitz Wetzlar
  • 64 degree diagonal angle of view

Screw mount, A36 fitting:

  • A36 push-on filter fitting rather than a thread

Screw mount, E39 thread:

  • E39 filter thread — the fitting that became standard

M bayonet (SOONC-M):

  • Order number 11105

M3 version with goggles (SOONC-MW):

  • Spectacles over the finder windows; order number 11107

M2 version (SOONC-MT):

  • No goggles; order number 11305

Serial-range notes

the whole Leitz lens sequence
THE RULE. Leitz numbered every lens it made in one continuous run, whatever the model, so a Summaron is dated from the company-wide lens serial/year list rather than from a list for this lens alone. Read the number off the front ring and find its bracket: 1946 = 601001–633000, 1947 = 633001–647000, 1948 = 647001–682000, 1949 = 682001–756000, 1950 = 756001–840000, 1951 = 840001–950000, 1952 = 950001–1051000, 1953 = 1051000–1124000, 1954 = 1124001–1236000, 1955 = 1236001–1333000, 1956 = 1333001–1459000, 1957 = 1459001–1548000, 1958 = 1548001–1645300, 1959 = 1645301–1717000, 1960 = 1717001–1827000 (Leica Wiki, Leica Lens Serial Numbers). Every block on this model's own page falls inside the bracket it is dated to, so the two lists agree for this lens.
706001–707000
The first block on the model list: 1,000 lenses of 1949. Nothing is listed for 1946, 1947 or 1948, although the same page opens the production era in 1946 — the earliest three years of the lens have no published serial evidence.
1690501–1690800
The last block: 300 lenses of 1959, and the highest Summaron f/3.5 numbers published. The page's own production era runs to 1960.
1178501–1182000
The first block marked (M): 3,500 bayonet lenses of 1954. It agrees with the SOONC-M 11105 order number, which the same page dates 1954, and contradicts that page's summary line giving the M bayonet as 1956–1960. The order number appears against a block only once, at 1562001–1566000 in 1958, printed as "M+M3-chrom.11105".
1360001–1363000
The goggled M3 version's own block: 3,000 lenses of 1956, printed as "M3.11107.chrom+black-specs". It is the only block that names the SOONC-MW 11107 order number, it is the first goggled block on the list, and it records the spectacles as black painted on a chrome lens.
840001–845000
Marked "S+M3-w/o-specs" and dated 1951 — three years before the M3 was announced. The same wording appears again at 1149101–1151000 in 1954, where it is unremarkable. No source consulted here explains the 1951 use.
712001–715000, 750001–753000, 765001–768000, 775001–782000, 880001–890000, 972001–977000, 1004001–1008000, 1015001–1020000, 1058001–1063000, 1106001–1110000, 1157001–1160500, 1220001–1223000, 1305501–1309000
The blocks the list marks (S) for screw thread alone. Four further blocks mix screw with bayonet lenses — 1224201–1228000, 1483701–1486000, 1518001–1521000 and 1552001–1557000 — and there a number does not establish the mount by itself.
the (S) blocks dated 1949 to 1955
The list never marks the filter fitting, so it cannot separate the A36 push-on barrel from the E39 thread on its own. What the same page does date is the change: it gives E39 as 1956–1960. Screw blocks falling in the 1949–1955 brackets therefore precede the E39 barrel, but no published block is labelled by fitting either way.
1148222–1149100 and 1175501–1178000
Rows printed on this model's page that the page attributes to other lenses — an Elmar 5 cm f/3.5 and a Summicron 5 cm f/2 (M). Footnotes claim individual Summaron f/3.5 bayonet lenses inside them all the same: 1148775 and 1148271 in the first, 1176510 in the second. Both rows are bracketed and excluded from the page's total.
1288001–1291000
A block claimed on two pages. It sits on this model's list as a Summaron block of 3,000 lenses of 1955; the Summarit 5 cm f/1.5 page prints the same numbers as a Summaron row, bracketed and excluded from the Summarit total. Both pages footnote the same lens, 1290589, as a Canadian screw-mount Summarit inside it.

Specifications

Formula
Double Gauss
Construction
6 elements / 4 groups
Aperture range
f/3.5–f/22
Diaphragm blades
10
Min. focus
1 m
Weight
195 g
Filter
A36 slip-on (Screw mount, A36 fitting) · 39 mm (Screw mount, E39 thread, M bayonet (SOONC-M), M3 version with goggles (SOONC-MW), M2 version (SOONC-MT))
Years manufactured
1946–1960
Country
Germany
Material
Chrome plated

What reviewers say

History

The Summaron 35mm f/3.5 is not an exciting lens and it is one of the most instructive in the system. Six elements in four groups, a modest maximum aperture, 195 grams, and about 122,021 of them made between 1946 and 1960 — this is what most people actually put on a screw Leica when they wanted something wider than a fifty.

Its interest is in the four ways Leitz had to sell it. In screw mount it changed filter fitting partway through, from the push-on A36 to the E39 thread that became the Leica standard. In M mount it exists plain, and it exists with goggles. The goggles are there because of the M3: that camera’s 0.91× finder cannot show a 35mm frame at all, so the lens was fitted with optics that shrink the whole finder image until the 50mm frame outlines a 35mm field. It is an elegant answer to a problem Leitz had created, and it is also heavy, ugly and prone to separating with age.

When the M2 arrived in 1958 with a 35mm frame built in, the same lens was sold without spectacles as the SOONC-MT. So the catalogue carried the identical optic in two forms, distinguished only by which camera the buyer owned — and the goggled version is now the cheaper of the two, because the camera it was made for is the one that needs them.

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 Summaron 3.5cm f/3.5? We'd love to feature it (with credit).

Live listings

Asking price, USD: a median of $550 across 61 fixed-price listings on 2026-10-19 (middle half $480–$680). Tracked since 2026-09-06, 10 days: up 16% from $480.

By day
DateMedianMiddle halfListings
2026-10-19$550$480–$68061
2026-10-18$550$480–$68062
2026-10-17$550$480–$68062
2026-10-16$550$480–$68061
2026-10-15$520$470–$60047
2026-09-21$470$390–$52045
2026-09-19$470$380–$52045
2026-09-18$470$380–$52045
2026-09-11$480$420–$55047
2026-09-06$480$420–$55046

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

Show 137 more listings

Buying from Yahoo! Auctions outside Japan. It is a domestic marketplace: sellers ship within Japan, and most will not register an overseas buyer. A proxy service bids on your behalf, receives the item and forwards it, for a fee and a wait. Buyee, Jauce and ZenMarket each accept a Yahoo auction number directly. Listed alphabetically for information — none is recommended over another, and none of these is an affiliate link.

Listings updated 2026-10-19. Links go to the shop or marketplace that carries the item.

Related: Elmar 3.5cm f/3.5 · Summaron 2.8cm f/5.6

Sources (11)

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.