The Pentamatic ’35’ went into production starting in December 1959. Our best guess as to how many were built is just that… a guess based on body serial numbers. The original Pentamatic has a rather easy to decode serial number as it uses the year, month and sequential production number in the overall serial number. An example would be… 56003354. That serial number decodes to ‘5’ = May, ’60’ = 1960, and ‘03354’ = number 3,354 th made since December 1959. Later serial numbers for October, November and December would be 116015100 which would be ’11’ = November, ’60’ = 1960, and ‘15100’ = the 15,100 th made since December 1959.
Pentamatic ’35’ made in May 1960 and it is the 3,354 th made.
Staying on our best guess path, it appears that about 16,000 Pentamatic ’35’ bodies were built during the approximately 15 month production run. So that brings us to the Pentamatic S which was the last version of the Pentamatic series of cameras. The serial number date coding theory hasn’t been fully been decoded as there is way too few in our database.
Here’s a Pentamatic ’35’ that was built in January 1961 and was the 13,838 th made since production began.
The Pentamatic S back view. Our guess, and it’s a big guess, is that the model S body serial “might” be ‘1’ = 1961, ‘4’ = April, and ‘0294’ = 294 th made.
Pentamatic S front view all decked out. The lens pictured is the standard lens for the Pentamatic model II.
Thank you for your visit and as always, please share your views with us and please, if we’ve made a mistake correct us! Our goal is to provide the most accurate data on the Pentamatic series.
Chris and Carol
Chasing Classic Cameras with Chris 