Serial number

[peot]

Hi! As I wrote yesterday I just bought a Fed 5 V (or B). I´m a little confused... My model is not the same as the ones I´ve been seeing all over the net. My specimen is the same model as the olympic game model but without the olympic game engraving in front. On the back it also has the "made in USSR" engraving" which I can´t seem to find on the cameras I´ve found pictures of on internet. Is there any possibility to determine when the camera was manufactured by checking the serial number? Thanks!

[darkkavenger]

Got pics? :)

[peot]

Thank you for taking your time to reply. I will try to post i pic as soon as I can.

[Laika]

On the back it also has the "made in USSR" engraving" which I can´t seem to find on the cameras I´ve found pictures of on internet.

My understanding is that makes it an export model. Interested to see pic's

[pshinkaw]

No one has ever published a method of discerning the manufacturing year of any Fed body based on the serial number that I am aware of. However, if you can be reasonably sure that the lens on the camera is the original one, the first two digits of the lens SN are supposed to indicate the year in the 20th Century when it was made. That could correspond to within a year or two of when the body itself was made. There could however be an exception with some of the later Induster 61 L/D lenses. I have two of them with staring didgits in the low 90's. I don't know if they were actually made that late, and it could be an erroneous assumtion for those models. There are also exceptions for some lenses with odd serial numbers because they may have been test models (similar to beta testing?) and bodies which may have been stored at the factory as parts and assembled many years later to convert inventory into cash. It's possible (even likely) that some late Fed-5 models were actually made in the Ukraine after the dissolution of the USSR, although I have actually heard of any being stamped, "Made in Ukraine".

-Paul

-Paul

[dll927]

However, that doesn't mean the lens is the original. There is something of a feeling in a lot of sites that the lens should not be newer than the body, as this would almost certainly mean it isn't the original lens. But does it really make a difference?

Most Zorkis and Kievs have serial numbers whose first two digits are the year of manufacture. They are easier to coordinate with the year of the lens.

[rolleistef]

a good way to know whether the lens is original or not, is to compare the lens SN and the body SN. They usually are quite close (i.e. : 64987XXX for the body and 64547XXX for the lens)
Stéphane

[pshinkaw]

Except that this usually does not work with Feds. I am looking now at a Fed-5B, body SN 0003xx and lens (I61L/D) SN is 91711xx. The camera and lens were purchased together and came into my hands in 2002.

Generall when it comes to Feds. I through up my hands. It's not worth the trouble to try and figure out their age or if the body and lens are a matched set.

There is a website somewhere that compiles the approximate year of manufacture of Feds with the model numbers (not SN's) That is very useful for guessing the age of Fed-2's since there are so many variations and it was made for so many years.

-Paul