Jos. Schneider Optische Werke has been a major player in global lens manufacture during our lifetime; it’s therefore strange to think of the company as a relative newcomer: ‘only’ being established in 1913 – almost forty years younger than their rivals Rodenstock. And yet within twelve months, Schneider released the first of many Symmar lenses, followed five years later by the groundbreaking Xenar design. By 1936, Schneider had sold one million lenses.
Schneider’s serial number system is ruthlessly simple – only complicated by the tortured on-off relationship with Isco, which we’ll return to shortly. On day one, Schneider made a lens and wrote ‘1’ on it. Every time the company made another lens, it engraved an incrementally larger number on it. Beginning with the 1936 seven-digit landmark, Schneider lenses and lens cells can be dated as follows:
| 1 000 000 | 1936 (August) |
| 1 200 000 | 1937 (December) |
| 1 400 000 | 1938 (November) |
| 1 600 000 | 1939 (September) |
| 1 800 000 | 1942 (June) |
| 2 000 000 | 1948 (September) |
| 2 200 000 | 1949 (July) |
| 2 400 000 | 1950 (October) |
| 2 600 000 | 1951 (May) |
| 2 800 000 | 1951 (November) |
| 3 000 000 | 1952 (May) |
| 4 000 000 | 1954 (October) |
| 5 000 000 | 1957 (February) |
| 6 000 000 | 1959 (May) |
| 7 000 000 | 1961 (February) |
| 8 000 000 | 1963 (March) |
| 8 500 000 | 1964 (February) |
| 9 000 000 | 1965 (February) |
| 9 500 000 | 1965 (September) |
| 10 000 000 | 1967 (January) |
| 10 500 000 | 1967 (October) |
| 11 000 000 | 1968 (November) |
| 11 500 000 | 1970 (July) |
| 12 000 000 | 1972 (September) |
| 12 500 000 | 1974 (March) |
| 13 000 000 | 1976 (December) |
| 13 200 000 | 1977 (September) |
| 13 400 000 | 1978 (October) |
| 13 600 000 | 1979 (October) |
| 13 800 000 | 1981 (January) |
| 14 000 000 | 1983 (October) |
| 14 100 000 | 1983 (October) |
| 14 200 000 | 1986 (August) |
| 14 300 000 | 1988 (November) |
| 14 400 000 | 1991 (January) |
| 14 460 000 | 1992 (February) |
| 14 480 000 | 1993 (January) |
| 14 500 000 | 1993 (November) |
| 14 510 000 | 1994 (January) |
| 14 520 000 | 1994 (May) |
| 14 540 000 | 1995 (January) |
| 14 560 000 | 1995 (April) |
| 14 590 000 | 1996 (January) |
| 14 600 000 | 1996 (April) |
| 14 620 000 | 1996 (November) |
| 14 623 340 | 1997 (January) |
| 14 651 520 | 1998 (January) |
| 14 690 300 | 1999 (January) |
| 14 726 600 | 2000 (January) |
| 14 730 000 | 2000 (April) |
| 14 756 400 | 2001 (January) |
| 14 788 450 | 2002 (January) |
| 14 820 970 | 2003 (January) |
| 14 853 700 | 2004 (January) |
| 14 890 800 | 2005 (January) |
| 15 000 000 | 2008 (December) Serial numbers after this date untracked |