[Leica] Leitz and Leica Glass

[Marc James Small <msmall@roanoke.infi.net>]

At 11:00 AM 6/1/98 EDT, Bill Rosauer wrote:
>This is a similar situation to the actual glass used in the manufacture of
>Leica lenses.  Since the Leitz Glass Research Lab was sold several years ago,
>Leica no longer makes any of their own glass.  They buy glass from various
>suppliers around the world, such as Schott, Hoya, etc., all made to their
>specification.  Even when they were making their own glass in the research
>lab, it was only for limited production lenses like the Noctilux.  They have
>been buying most of their glass from outside suppliers for years.

To the best of my knowledge, and per every written source I have at hand,
neither Leitz nor Leica EVER made their own glass.  The Research Lab was
simply that:  a research lab.  Glass was originally purchased from CP
Goerz;  when Goerz was forced into the Zeiss Ikon merger, then they
purchased their glass from the sole German source-of-supply, Schott und
Genossen.  In recent years, they have purchased some glass from more
mundane suppliers such as Hoya, but this has always been restricted to the
more mundane lenses, such as the R optics. <G>

I believe ALL M glass has come from Schott for German-built lenses.  I do
not know whence came the glass for Canadian lenses, but I would suspect
Corning or Corning-via-Kodak.

Marc


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