WHAT CONDITION THE CONDITION IS IN: This lens was recently CLA’d and is optically clean. Focus is smooth and the aperture has solid clicks. It’s in great cosmetic shape with only minor, hard to spot blemishes. More below on what makes this lens special. Or allegedly special, depending on how much you’ve spent today.

Midland, Ontario, 1969. Walter Mandler*, a German optical designer exiled to the frozen wilds of Canada, stares at the blueprints for the Summicron 50mm f/2 Version 3 with a quiet smile.

Optimized for contrast and flare reduction and improved colour fidelity. He ships the specs back to Germany, where his former colleagues nod approvingly and begin production.

Except some lenses are also made in Canada, because apparently Leica couldn't decide which country deserved the honour. It's the photographic equivalent of the European Stag Beetle: found across Germany, France, and beyond. Technically identical, yet collectors lose their minds over which forest birthed it, as if a beetle from Bavaria has better mandibles than one from Bordeaux.

This Summicron 50mm f/2 M-mount, serial number 2535801, made in Germany in 1971, features Mandler's optical formula: smooth long-throw focusing helicoid, precise hard-stop infinity focus. Sharp centre performance wide open, smooth bokeh, natural colours, minimal distortion, low chromatic aberration. Compact, lightweight, all-metal barrel.

It's brilliant. It's also made in Germany. Or Canada. Depending on when Leica felt like using which factory. All equally excellent, all equally coveted by people who'll spend twenty minutes explaining why their lens's birthplace matters.

In the end, the Summicron 50mm f/2 Version 3 is like the European Stag Beetle: one design, multiple birthplaces, identical mandibles. German-made or Canadian-made, it's still Mandler's masterpiece. The beetle doesn't care which forest it crawled out of. Pour another schnapps or rye and stop caring.

*Walter Mandler was born to a German farming family, he joined Ernst Leitz at Wetzlar in 1947 as a lens designer, presumably because farming wasn't sufficiently precise. In 1952, when Leitz established Ernst Leitz Canada (ELCAN) in Midland, Ontario, Mandler was sent over "on loan" for what was supposed to be a short stint. He stayed for more than half a century, became a Canadian citizen, and eventually Vice President of ELCAN. One imagines the Germans asking when he'd return and Mandler, having survived his first Ontario winter, thinking, "Well, if I made it through that, I can make it through anything."