This rare Nikkor-N 1.1/50mm lens to be up for auction in June

A very rare Nikkor-N 1.1/50mm lens will soon become available for you to buy. Introduced in 1950s, this is one of only 200 of these lenses with Leica M39 mount. And nearly seven decades later, one of these ultra-fast lenses is auctioning at Leitz Photographica Auctions.

“Nikon was the first of the major camera manufacturers to offer an ultra-fast 50mm lens,” Leitz writes in the auction announcement. “The famous Nikkor-N 1.1/50mm was an impressive optical achievement, with the lens containing 9 optical elements in a relatively compact housing.⁠”

As Jerry Bay of Leica Moment points out, Nikon wasn’t really the first to work on an ultra-fast lens, but it was among the first. Zunow began the development of ultra-fast lenses in 1953, releasing the Zunow 50mm f/1.1. Nikon jumped on the bandwagon three years later, in 1956.

What’s special about this lens isn’t only that it’s one of the first ultra-fast lenses out there. Or that it has a 12-blade diaphragm providing spectacular bokeh. It’s also its mount. According to Jerry, there were 1500 units produced with internal Nikon mount, 1800 with external Nikon mount, and only 200 with the M39 Leica screw mount. And as I mentioned, this one comes in the rarest mount of the three.

There’s still no estimate on how much the Nikkor-N 1.1/50mm could fetch at the 41st Leitz auction. But it’s coming this June, so we’ll wait and see how it goes.

[via Nikon Rumors]