| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| jed |
Posted - Apr 28 2015 : 12:30:22 PM
Hi,
Here's some close up pictures of a Kiev II from 1953. Some parts seems from German manufacture (focusing wheel, counter dial, lens mount)- quite uncommon, that camera is a late Kiev II.
 |
| 43 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) |
| Vlad |
Posted - May 01 2015 : 09:24:55 AM
Altix,
Thank you very much for this expanded timeline, I was missing a several important new details from my timeline that you kindly provided from your research which is absolutely fascinating! I wish I had time to put together a comprehensive article on this subject, the information just begs to be consolidated in one place and not the forum. Maybe someday  .
Jed, amazing picture, thank you for the link!
Best regards,
Vlad. |
| Jacques M. |
Posted - May 01 2015 : 08:16:04 AM
Many thanks for this very clear explanation, Altix!
I think it will be useful to all of us.
Amitiés. Jacques. |
| altix |
Posted - May 01 2015 : 05:40:13 AM
Oh, I made a mistake. On the photograph is a square near the Jena Volkshaus.
Here you can find another picture of this scene from another angle off view (last page) http://www.zeiss.de/content/dam/Corporate/history/PDFs/20-jahre-buch_auszug.pdf
Dated by June 1945. |
| jed |
Posted - May 01 2015 : 04:53:26 AM
Guard in the foreground look like American so you are probably correct |
| altix |
Posted - May 01 2015 : 03:58:54 AM
Dear Jed,
It looks like the Friedrich -Schiller University Jena buildings. The crates with Zeiss Jena documents and equipment are prepared by Americans to be transported to the West.
Great quality of photo, thank you! |
| jed |
Posted - May 01 2015 : 03:37:42 AM
Hi Altix,
Thanks lots for you last post it helped me a lot.
For those interested, see here a large picture of the factory Jena June 45 (factory device in the way to USSR ?)
http://a400.idata.over-blog.com/4/17/21/46/photos2/jenajuin.jpg |
| altix |
Posted - Apr 30 2015 : 11:56:42 AM
Dear Vlad,
I am very pleased that you are interested in this thematic and want to set order in the chaos of what happened in turbulent post-war years.
Without going into details it looks like this:
1945 Soviets dismantled the rests of Contax production in Dresden and sent it to USSR. Only limited part of these devices was used since during the transportation through Poland and Soviet Union many equipment was lost or damaged or was no use for new factories. A batch of Dresden Contaxes was sent to Kiev. Some optics or optical parts were sent to USSR as well. Probably soon it was realized that lenses with Contax mounts are of no much use in USSR in 1945. The rests of optics from Dresden warehouses were sent to Jena in order to convert them into LTM mount lenses. Here comes disagreement with data from H. Thiele. According to him these lenses were produced with Contax mount but one finds them in LTM mounts. This happens I assume because of this modification. It can be that Zeiss left no notes in their archives. Soviets tried to keep secret many things. An example of such Sonnar you can find here http://ussrphoto.com/Forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=2774.
Late 1945 Jena factory makes lenses and optical devices for USSR. They exported o USSR optics on 2 million Rubels. Most probably these lenses are almost all Sonnars 2/50 or 1.5/50 in Contax mount. These lenses you can find e.g. on TSVVS.
As far as I remember this year begins the first dismantle of the factory. All equipment that was used for military optics production and laboratories were dismantled. Military optics was brought to USSR. Soviet military administration said that no other dismantle was foreseen and workers of the factory should produce reparation goods. This was a lie since Ustinov (folk komissar of armarment) and his people actively started to prepare places for factory transportation into USSR.
1946 Work on Contax and Volga/Kiev project. Reconstruction of blueprints and drownings from films and Dresden Contaxes, manufacture of tools. Most probably this prototype http://ussrphoto.com/Forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=2827 among other was created. Proposition of Schrade, Schomerus and Sandman to create an analog of Zeiss and Schott factories in Volga region from the scratch. Shortage of money and other plans of Soviets made this idea unheared. Decision to produce Kiev cameras in Arsenal instead of Volga cameras. Creation of the first Contax Jena and probably no-number Kievs from available rests of Dresden Contaxes http://ussrphoto.com/Wiki/default.asp?WikiCatID=20&ParentID=1&ContentID=1635&Item=Early Kiev - Dresden %2F Jena samples.
November 1946 100 years of Carl Zeiss. Instead of celebration the full demontage began. The dismantle lasts almost one year. The production of Contaxes (and later also Kievs) continued. On the request of German communistic party Stalin allowed to leave 6% of all available in fall 1946 equipment in Jena. I expect that this was not enough to continue further mass Contax production.
Black market Contaxes (lenses?).
1946 Workers taken from Jena factory and transported to Kiev Arsenal to start preparing for production of Kievs there.
1947 The first Kievs appeared in Jena. Bold font, Zeiss+Soviet serial numbers. The second batch of Kievs with only Soviet engraving.
1947' Kievs were assembled in Kiev from Dresden Contaxes that were brought in 1945. Italic font. (I see that conkie says that these Contaxes were assembled in Jena as well. Maybe I am wrong that these cameras were modified in Kiev).
Black market Contaxes (lenses?).
1948 Rests of Contax Jena and Jena Kievs brought to Arsenal. 1948 Kievs made from these spare parts.
Late 1948 Arsenal cameras made from Dresden Contaxes. Usually with italic font of Kiev logo.
1949 The first Arsenal cameras appeared. Still some spare parts were used from (Dresden) Contax.
Somehow Jena managed to continue Contax cameras production until 1951 or even later. But the demontage made this process a real pain. When Soviets decided that the reparation politics is more or less completed the production of Contaxes was dropped. As I understand these cameras were allowed to produce in SBZ and later in DDR in order to sell abroad. Soviets needed the foreign currency and Contaxes were partly sold as reparation payments.
I reconstructed here the time line as good as I can based on documents and historical investigations I've read. If someone would correct me I would be very appreciated.
with best regards
altix |
| Vlad |
Posted - Apr 30 2015 : 09:36:20 AM
Hello Altix,
Again sorry for late answer, but thank you for that link, unfortunately German is not one of the languages that I understand, but I will try to OCR and translate it from that PDF... I remember that huge thread about Kiev/Contax, I guess the reason I brought all this up, is maybe that in my mind I want to establish a concise timeline of Jena/Dresden Contax/Kiev expatriation and role of Kiev cameras made back in Germany.. I am still a bit confused by a sequence of events of that transfer. I am going to attempt a very broad timeline based on my extremely limited knowledge or at least what I thought I knew because I am more confused now that ever.. I really need to go back and read again all this materials that you have kindly contributed to this forum. So the rought timeline as I understand it and maybe you can fill in the blanks with any new information that you have:
1945 - Soviets demand Dresden's production of Contax II and III as war reparations
1945 - Soviets dismantle Dresden factory of all equipment and spare parts and shipped to USSR
1945 (late) - Jena tries to resume production - Jena was ordered to crete 3 production lines - (2 Volga camera models for USSR and 1 for German Contax)
1946 - Jena - Production starts
1946 (October) - Workers taken from Jena factory and transported to Kiev Arsenal to start preparing for production of Kievs there
1946-1947 - Kiev - a few hundred Kievs built during training of Arsenal workers out of Dresden parts
1947 - Jena - Contax II, Contax III, Kiev II, Kiev III (???) built and numerious black market cameras assembled off the factory by workers with smuggled parts (Kievs or Contaxes??). (According to Peter Hennig also numberless cameras assembled at factory for bribes and favors with USSR management)
1947 (October) - Jena Kievs delivered to USSR
1948 - Kiev Preparation for full scale production
1949 - Full scale production of Kievs starts
Thanks!
Cheers,
Vlad
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| altix |
Posted - Apr 29 2015 : 4:37:31 PM
The Sonnar on no-number Kiev is combined with the camera this year. I think that cameras were delivered in Kiev without lenses or leather bags. It is quite natural way to transport such sort of goods. The lenses from Jena were sent usually to KMZ or to Leningrad. So I doubt that any connection exists between the camera and Sonnar. But it is true that the lens suits the camera body. |
| uwittehh |
Posted - Apr 29 2015 : 4:03:55 PM
Jed, yes, I think it matches the camera.
Ulrich
http://fotos.cconin.de |
| jed |
Posted - Apr 29 2015 : 3:55:41 PM
So it seems to match with the camera ? Am I correct ? |
| uwittehh |
Posted - Apr 29 2015 : 3:19:28 PM
Jed, that lens comes out of a batch of 1400 lenses which was completet on 4.12.1947 (dates from Thiele's book).
Ulrich
http://fotos.cconin.de |
| jed |
Posted - Apr 29 2015 : 3:14:09 PM
Hi,
Please note that the seller of the camera sold at the same time that lens. Ebay seller just confirm to me both camera and lens belonged to the same owner.
http://www.ussrphoto.com/UserContent/2942015_$_12.JPG
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| jed |
Posted - Apr 29 2015 : 2:17:45 PM
I've added an entry :
http://ussrphoto.com/Wiki/default.asp?WikiCatID=20&ParentID=1&ContentID=1635&Item=Early+Kiev+-+Dresden+%2F+Jena+samples
I'll let members with better knowledge than mine to add text ;) |
| altix |
Posted - Apr 29 2015 : 1:15:07 PM
yes Jed you can post them, but I afraid that the quality of my photos is poor. I do not have a good digital camera by hand.
It is funny that this year two such cameras became known. One bought in USA and the other in East Europe. Incredible migration paths of these cameras :) |
| jed |
Posted - Apr 29 2015 : 1:07:30 PM
Thanks for your comments. Should we add that camera and yours in the wiki as samples ? |
| altix |
Posted - Apr 29 2015 : 1:02:34 PM
I think this is enough. Thank you for sharing the picture of this interesting camera with us. |
| jed |
Posted - Apr 29 2015 : 12:59:11 PM
No other pictures needed ? I'll rebuilt the camera pretty soon. |
| jed |
Posted - Apr 29 2015 : 12:56:38 PM
you're right, something was erased... |
| altix |
Posted - Apr 29 2015 : 12:51:14 PM
Yea, I see. The scratched in Jena number seems to be erased. There are traces of brushing. Remarkably that Arsenal did not put their own number. Probably that could be a problem for factory accountants. |
| uwittehh |
Posted - Apr 29 2015 : 11:43:32 AM
Here it goes: "Kiev III 1949 and Contax III M series."
http://ussrphoto.com/Forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=1863
A bit below the middle.
Ulrich
http://fotos.cconin.de |
| jed |
Posted - Apr 29 2015 : 11:37:47 AM
Hi Altix,
I'm 100% positive there's nothing written on the shutter. Please see this :
 |
| uwittehh |
Posted - Apr 29 2015 : 11:34:42 AM
Jed, thanks for the closeup of the arrow. Now I try to remember in which thread we have discussed this...
Ulrich
P.S: I deleted my question about the number on the back because I have seen the picture too late :-)
http://fotos.cconin.de |
| altix |
Posted - Apr 29 2015 : 11:28:50 AM
Dear Jed,
It looks like the number was erased from the shutter housing. What do you think? The scratched number can be very very faint and difficult to see. Play with the light probably under some angle you would be able to see it.
Since there are no traces of Contax engravings on the front plate, the camera came from Dresden to Kiev through Jena as I described. Otherwise it would mean that Contax front plate was converted into Kiev one on the Arsenal factory in 1953. It seems that was practiced only for very early batch 1947 Kiev with italic font. Later they just replaced the Contax plates with the produced in Arsenal. Quite reasonable. |
| jed |
Posted - Apr 29 2015 : 11:17:58 AM
Hi Ulrich,
Here's a close up picture :
 |
| uwittehh |
Posted - Apr 29 2015 : 11:12:44 AM
Jed, a closeup of the arrow of the selftimer would be interesting. As I remember we have found out something some times ago about the style of the arrow (different styles on Jena Contax, normal Contax and early Kievs).
Ulrich
http://fotos.cconin.de |
| jed |
Posted - Apr 29 2015 : 11:10:51 AM
Hi all,
Please ask more pictures if wanted before I put everything back again |
| jed |
Posted - Apr 29 2015 : 11:07:57 AM
 |
| jed |
Posted - Apr 29 2015 : 10:51:19 AM
 |
| jed |
Posted - Apr 29 2015 : 10:46:09 AM
 |
| Jacques M. |
Posted - Apr 29 2015 : 05:44:20 AM
A very good find, Jed!
I think too that this camera was made in Dresden before it was sent to Jena. The original chrome of Dresden was very rough in the 1941-45 years and the front plate must have been changed at Jena. The Jena chrome is much softer, like on your camera, as it seems. All that before it was sent to Kiev.
But Altix has already said all that. He could not hold his  about my new Contax! Yes, I will post soon.
Amitiés. Jacques.
|
| altix |
Posted - Apr 29 2015 : 02:51:43 AM
As far as I see the shoe is not of usual Arsenal production. In 1953 they were to dull with a thick cylindrical stopper (something like 6mm in diameter). It seems that the shoe is original and was modified from the no-number shoe. The engraving was done in Arsenal in 1953 and was filled with black paint (I expect there is no chrome under this paint). Usual shoes from 53 are without the black paint and digits looks like to be stamped and with thicker font.
The history of this camera for me looks like the following: The camera was produced in Dresden and was kept there in warehouses. In 1945 it was sent to Jena. This batch contained the no-number camera I mentioned above. In 46-47 these cameras were equipped with a new front plate and new leatherette on the back door. In 1947 these cameras were sent to Kiev. In Kiev they were kept in warehouse and were forgotten. In 1953 the cameras were discovered and were engraved with the serial number. The no-number camera was discovered much later (perhaps in the beginning of 90-ies, I have indirect proof of it) and was not numbered at all. At least these cameras are from the very early batch of Dresden-Jena Contax-Kievs brought to Kiev.
I expect there are no traces of Contax engraving left on the front plate since the plate was produced in Jena. The number scratched on the shutter housing would be something like xx or xxx if more than hundred such cameras existed. It would be probably scratched rather than engraved. And I don't think that the font would be with no rounded digits as Ulrich assumes.
If you, Jed, remove the front plate please look on any markings. I've found the scratched sign like a window on no-number Kiev.
Jacques M. has found a real jewel of the early Jena Contax story. He planned to post his find on ussrphoto. It is not Soviet camera but is interesting evolution specimen in the history of Kiev migration to USSR. Now I think intrigued everyone enough . |
| uwittehh |
Posted - Apr 29 2015 : 01:58:18 AM
Jed, what a great find. After reading the posts and looking at the pictures it seems that you have one of the KIEVs that were made in Jena.
If you dismantle it take a look if there is an number on the back of the shutter, my early Kievs have a scratched in number with characteristical numbers (non runded digits). It would also be interesting if there is an Contax name seen on the back of the front plate that was stamped out before re-engraving the KIEV name.
Maybe the shoe was changed at the time when the flash sync was installed?
Ulrich
http://fotos.cconin.de |
| jed |
Posted - Apr 29 2015 : 01:36:49 AM
Hi,
Here's some other pictures. The hot shoe looks like a Kiev part without shiny chrome.
I may dismantle the camera in the evening. I'm reluctant to do this as the camera works fine but will do. I repair old Kiev and Contax so no problem at all.
 |
| altix |
Posted - Apr 29 2015 : 12:54:41 AM
Dear Vlad,
we discussed this few years ago. Here is a nice table in the article of Berndt Otto http://fotos.cconin.de/ussrphoto/conkie_7.pdf
Here is a famous photo (taken from Hans-Juergen Kuc book)
http://www.ussrphoto.com/UserContent/2942015_13.jpg
I am almost convinced that the camera is from the very early batch of Dresden Contaxes modified in Jena and sent to Kiev. Probably the flash synchronization was done in Jena too.
The leatherette on the back is the same as on no-number Kiev I've mentioned above. Unfortunately the leather on Kiev cameras from 1953 has very similar structure. But it seems that the leather on the front is from Dresden Contax. It is curious since on no-number Kiev Dresden leatherette is only on the top thin stripe near the strap lugs.
I still don't know why the shoe with the later number appear. In order to know it I would like to ask Jed to tell me about this shoe. Is it covered with shiny chrome? Jed if you could measure the diameter of cylindrical stopper on the shoe with a caliper. This would help to reconstruct the history of camera migration.
It would be also interesting to see the camera with removed back door. Namely the closeup of flash socket connection.
with best regards
altix |
| Vlad |
Posted - Apr 28 2015 : 8:53:38 PM
Altix, I am sorry if I missed some of your posts before, I don't have as much time to read every post lately, but what makes you believe that Jena actually made Kiev-branded cameras? What is the actual proof of that?
Thanks,
Vlad |
| jed |
Posted - Apr 28 2015 : 5:12:16 PM
 |
| altix |
Posted - Apr 28 2015 : 4:47:27 PM
The shiny front plate says that the front plate on the camera was probably replaced in Jena factory. Recently we discussed a very similar camera http://ussrphoto.com/Forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=2771
Here is a photo of it
http://www.ussrphoto.com/UserContent/2842015_12.jpg
Your camera seems to be from the first batch of Kievs that arrived from Jena to Kiev. They are actually Dresden Contaxes that were inspected, calibrated in Jena and with minor cosmetic changes sent to Arsenal. The absence of traces of Contax engraving on the rear part of the plate will support this hypothesis. In this case the shoe with 53 was placed instead the original shoe.
If there are some traces of Contax engraving (which I find rather impossible) it would mean that the camera came directly from Dresden to Kiev and there was modified in 1953.
Could you also share a close up of the leatherette of the camera back door?
|
| jed |
Posted - Apr 28 2015 : 4:33:44 PM
 |
| jed |
Posted - Apr 28 2015 : 4:23:40 PM
quote:
Originally posted by altix
Dear Jed,
it is hard to judge from the pictures but it seems that the chrome on the front plate is too shiny. It is unusual for cameras from 1953.
You're right. Front plate is shiny like a Contax one. No comparison with a 1950-51 Kiev (I own 6 and I've just checked)
quote:
Originally posted by altix
It can be that the camera body is not from 1953
My thoughts really.
quote:
Originally posted by altix
A good hint would be if you say what kind of rangefinder this camera has. Is it split as it is standard for Zeiss Ikon Contaxes?
Zeiss no doubt. I'll post pictures |
| altix |
Posted - Apr 28 2015 : 4:06:37 PM
Dear Jed,
it is hard to judge from the pictures but it seems that the chrome on the front plate is too shiny. It is unusual for cameras from 1953. It is also strange that the front plate has the rim around the bayonet in Contax style. It puzzles me. It can be that the camera body is not from 1953 (of course it is Contax, but I mean the last modification of the body on Arsenal factory ). Or the whole story could be a bit more complicated as I mentioned above.
To guess its origin it would help if you remove the front plate and look on the rear side. A good hint would be if you say what kind of rangefinder this camera has. Is it split as it is standard for Zeiss Ikon Contaxes? (it would be great if you can make a photo of a big rangefinder window). Definitely the camera is interesting.
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| jed |
Posted - Apr 28 2015 : 3:05:02 PM
Hi Altix,
Thanks for comments. You're right I bought it recently well aware that the camera has something special. I agree with you it seems a Contax with Kiev front plate.
Another clue :
 |
| altix |
Posted - Apr 28 2015 : 1:49:39 PM
I saw this camera on ebay recently. I would say that it is Contax with Kiev front plate and serial number. The flash socket is later addition and is not like Arsenal ones. Probably modified in Hungary. Perhaps in 1953 a batch of Contaxes was discovered in warehouses of Arsenal and used in order to save time and money. There are no much cameras were released in 1953. Probably workers were too unhappy (or too happy) that Stalin died. So the discovery of Contaxes was good possibility to fulfill the gosplan. |
