chris_whelan4

<p>Hello Rick. Wonderful article and I must compliment you on your two very fine Yashicas! Outstanding to see the Penta J and the Reflex 35 J side by side. Your lens is just a few weeks older than mine. My Penta J's lens serial number is 120410. The body serial number is 2215951. Curious as to what your body serial numbers are. I'm pretty sure my camera has the original lens mated with the body from the factory. My newer Penta J body's serial number is 4219225. I'm pretty sure that there is a date code in here. The 221 and 421 on my two J's are Feb 1962 and Apr 1962. The "1" is a place holder or a model ID. The remaining numbers are the production sequence numbers... 5,951 and 9,225. The lenses were made at the Tomioka Optical factory in Tokyo as Yashica hadn't acquired Tomioka yet (1968). The 'J' models are... Penta J, J-3, J-4, J-P & J-5 and finally the J-7. My serial numbers are a theory at this point and are consistent with the serial numbers of the Pentamatic. Regards, Chris</p>