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[OM] Re: Zuiko Silver Nose Trivia

Subject: [OM] Re: Zuiko Silver Nose Trivia
From: Moose <olymoose@xxxxxxxxx>
Date: Mon, 27 Mar 2006 02:55:36 -0800
Jeff Keller wrote:
> I think you've got it wrong Moose,
>
> I have:
> a black nosed "G.ZUIKO" 28mm F3.5 lens with serial number 4707xx.
> a silver nosed "ZUIKO MC" 35mm F2 with serial number 1003xx
> a black nosed "ZUIKO MC" 35mm F2 with serial number 1308xx
>
>
> I really doubt Olympus made about 400,000 28mm f3.5 lens before making a 
> multicoated 35mm F2 lens. 
But I suspect that is exactly what happened. The 28/3.5 was one of the 
first lenses produced for the OM system back in the days when 35 mm was 
the standard WA and 28 mm was considered a very wide lens. They were 
relatively cheap, good quality and Oly made and sold a lot of them. 
Remember, Oly sold something like 2.5 million 50/1.4 and 1.8 and 250,000 
35/2.8 lenses before they went MC. Like the 28/3.5, the 135/3.5 seems to 
never have gone MC, and our records show they probably sold about to 
400,000 of them. I don't recall, but is seems possible that they sold 
28/3.5s for some time after the faster ones were introduced, if they had 
a lot of stock on hand. Even today, you can buy a new in box Can*n 10D 
from B&H, although it has been twice replaced, by the 20D and 30D. So I 
think it not unlikely that they sold 400,000 28/3.5s, all SC and with 
the leading letter. That they were all sold before they made the 35/2, I 
doubt.

Another possibility is that they didn't make 400,000 of them, but 
somebody back then just screwed up with the lens rings, making too many 
of them. There are stories that lens rings were just put in a bin from 
which they were drawn at random during production, so serial number 
order may generally match production order, but not exactly.

The 28/3.5 was never converted to MC, but rather replaced by the MC 
28/2.8. The F2 WAs came out later and were much more expensive than 
their older design, slower counterparts. Many more of the slower ones 
were sold. I personally remember buying a Vivitar 28/2.5 (that I still 
have - hi Walt) because I couldn't afford the Zuiko f2.8, let alone the 
2.0 and wanted something faster than f3.5. Now, all these years later, I 
do have a 28/2, but none of the other fast wides.
> It seems to me that the "ZUIKO MC" nomenclature 
> was used on the F2 lenses long before the "G.ZUIKO" nomenclature was dropped 
> from all of the non-F2 lenses.
>   
I'm not sure what "long before" means, but yes. x.ZUIKO was still being 
used on many lenses after the F2 WA lenses were released. The conversion 
to MC took several years to encompass all the focal lengths and speeds.
> The "ZUIKO" nomenclature of the silver nosed 16mm, 50/3.5, and 70-150 seems 
> to have been used while the "ZUIKO MC" nomenclature was used on F2 lenses, 
> and while "G.ZUIKO" nomenclature was used on non-F2 wide angle lenses.
>
> I suspect the change from silver nosed to black nosed happened over a very 
> short period of manufacturing. 
Possibly true, at least for the higher volume lenses, although we will 
probably never know for sure. However, some of the more exotic, 
expensive and low volume focal lengths were made in batches that then 
took years to sell through. Many believe that the 8/2.8 was only made 
once, although sold for decades and that lengthy storage included some 
that was less than ideal, resulting in the large incidence of fungus 
problems.
> The change from single coated non-F2 to 
> multicoated non-F2 probably happened over a fairly long period.
>   
Yup.

Moose

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