Zeiss Ikon Contax Camera Repair

The Contax I Chrome Face Camera

Three of these chrome faced cameras have been come here over the past 5 years.  All three have come out of the Sweden, Norway or Finland.  All three chrome faced Contax I’s have bee very highly used.  This one is  the best looking of the three.  All three have shown the signs of repeated shutter maintenance in the form of screws with heavily worn heads.

The plating is chrome and not nickel.  The quality of the plating is extremely high.  There does not appear to be any of the signs of polishing or other surface plating pre-treatment which would be required if the face had originally been painted.  The edges are crisp and clean and if they had been prepared for plating after paint had been removed they would have had to be highly polished and subject to other cleaning operations which would have blurred the edge. The only difference between the Chrome Face Contax 1 and a regular Contax IF is the chrome plated front plate. Mechanically and optically it is identical to any other Contax IF.

I believe a very limited number of these cameras were manufactured immediately after World War II. At that time Zeiss was suffering a shortage of the very high quality black paint used to paint its camera bodies and lenses. The source of this paint was Russia because this paint was based on the use of the precious fossil resin amber. Only Russia manufacturd and supplied amber based paint to the world prior to Worl War II. The war had completely disrupted the source of the top quality black paint Zeiss had used previously. I believe the Chrome Face Contax I to be a postwar or "Jena" Contax of the most extreme rarity.

The Contax I Converted 50mm f2.0 Lens

A very rare Contax I lens has recently come to light.  It’s internal design demonstrates it is a converted Contaflex TLR 50mm f2.0 rigid lens.  In the next picture it is shown on the right.  On the left is a normal Contax I 50mm f2.0 lens.

In this picture you can see the front view of both lenses.

I don’t have a Contaflex TLR 50mm f2.0 lens here now, but subsequent Contax II and III 50mm f2.0 Collapsable Sonnar lenses are based upon the design of the TLR lens.  The lens cartridge for the TLR 50mm f2.0 and the later collapsible Sonnars are exactly the same.  The above lens contains an internal brass threaded spacer that allow s the lens cartridge to fit inside the rigid mount.