e leitz wetzlar 12x60 binoculars serial numbers

I picked this up at my local flea market for $25 and figured that to be the price of the military case, with the odd optics inside being basically free. I have fairly developed skills, and view it more as an entertaining challenge than drudgery. Maybe someone even knows the exact manufacture date of his/her Hartmann binocular.Sometimes I view fun with optics as being in the research. With help of community I hopefully can refine the list. In the attached files you can find an overview which numbers correspond to which periods as well of about 150 samples I have found. The highest tota number l I've found is 157716. The highest Porlerim number I found is 147153. With 1986, Porlerim production was discontinued. First compacts I found where around 121k. This style was later used for porlerims and berninas too. These compacts also had a new type of eyepiece knurling that was rougher.

The first Berninas had eyepieces in the same style as Porlerim (fine knurling). The lowest number I've found on a Bernina is 72226. At around 62k, the Leichtmetall dropped from product name. Up until about 55k they used an italic font for the serial number and then changed it to non-italic. At about 33k Hartmann switched back to the two screws and thus the metal wedge prism shift collimation system. The post-war Porlerims had only one centered screw per cover plate and show the typical screws in the body to tilt the prisms for collimation. The lowest number I found was 11500 so I think that below 11k binoculars mustīe produced before WW2. This binoculars had two screws per prism chamber cover plate, suggesting they already used the metal wedges to move the prisms for collimation.Īfter World War II, Hartmann continued production of Leichtmetall Porlerims in 1948, but they were marked with 'Made in US-Zone Germany'. I searched the internet for pictures of Hartmann binoculars and made a list of the serial numbers and the product line.įrom the Hartmann history summarized by Gijs van Ginkel we know that the first Leichtmetall Porlerims were made from 1936-1939. Since the number does not differ between production lines, the serial numbers for new product line introductions and thus the corresponding manufacturing dates can be identified. Hartmann-Optik Wetzlar used a constantly increasing serial number for its binoculars.

E leitz wetzlar 12x60 binoculars serial numbers