Help with Helios-44-2

Hi all,

Just picked up this lens on a local camera show, can anyone tell me whether it's really an early Helios 44-2 lens or numbers restart at some point. Anyone privy to the lens numbering system? I am somewhat clueless about lenses here so would like to know whether I bought something valuable.. thanks!


http://www.ussrphoto.com/UserContent/1612010_IMG_6695.JPG

Best regards,
Vlad

According to various theories any serial with a'0' in front is higher quality than normal,'00' even better and '000' is best quality to be given to high party officials etc used as prototypes and so on . Maybe Zoom can help more here as it is a KMZ product, but it looks to me like you have a very early 44-2 possibly first production run (or an elaborate fake!) Anyway very worth holding on to and very interesting to see

Samsung GX-10,too many Russian Lenses, A lot of Zenits, an Almaz 103 a few Yashica,and finally a Minox35GT

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Originally posted by Poolhall

According to various theories any serial with a'0' in front is higher quality than normal,'00' even better and '000' is best quality to be given to high party officials etc used as prototypes and so on.

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Nope.

Richard, thanks for your theory, I've never heard of this kind of arrangement with any of the equipment honestly when it comes to KMZ stuff... especially with something so common and mass produced as Helios lenses.. with KMZ really in Soviet era it seems like you get fairly consistent high quality lenses, optics were never a problem. I've heard of some prototype cameras given as presents to some officials or leading engineers on the projects and then there's the whole "Syezd" stamped equipment that WAS given to officials as presents.. actually denoting quality of an item with serial# goes against the Soviet principles of mass production . Extremely high quality items may have been set aside manually, and one way I think it was done with some cameras at least - they would get the CCCP Quality stamp (which I am not sure what the requirements were to get that, some kind of approval by someone I would assume).


Zoom, any ideas - any significance of no year prefix here? I have a few Helios-44(-2)'s that have the same kind of numbering system and some have year prefix.. I wonder why..

Hi Vlad, its a theory I have seen a few times on the web and on different forums, and I never really thought much of it myself. I have 2 'o' and a '00' Helios 44's and have never noticed any difference between them and others, similarly with the 'Cosmogon' 44M lenses that some claim to be better quality. I think you just have an early model lens here but the serial certainly makes it stand out I would agree about the presentation cameras and such too and that overall all the KMZ gear was of a pretty consistent quality otherwise I wouldn't use as much as I do

Samsung GX-10,too many Russian Lenses, A lot of Zenits, an Almaz 103 a few Yashica,and finally a Minox35GT

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Originally posted by Vlad

Zoom, any ideas - any significance of no year prefix here?

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I know that you know this page: http://www.zenitcamera.com/qa/qa-serialnumbers.html aren't you? ;)

Hello Zoom, thanks for that link, your site has so much information, I have NOT actually seen this page! Very useful, thanks again! I guess according to this link I posses one of the "trial batches" of the lenses. Very cool!

Best regards,
Vlad.

I've seen 000 serial numbers before but never 00000. It's worth hanging onto as I doubt there are too many like it.

I have never been convinced by the virtual theories about the serial numbers being reserved. Unfortunately I cannot read Russian so the site is no use to me but I take it the link from Zoom gives evidence to further destroy the theory.