When did lenses become multi-coated?

[claudiocambon]

I was looking at a 90mm f8 Super Angulon on Ebay recently, and the owner said he got it about 18 years ago, and so he assumed it was multi-coated, but he wasn't sure from the lens designation (I didn't ask him about the lens hue). Does Schneider, or any other lens manufacturer, have a start list on their serial numbers when they started multi-coating? Thanks in advance!

Claudio

[Marko]

As far as I know, Schneider lenses should have "MC" or "Multicoated" spelled out on the lens, next to the model.

[Jason Greenberg Motamedi]

"The first Symmar-S lens to be multi-coated was the Symmar-S 150mm, serial number 13,014,862 in March 1977. The 210mm followed and then the rest of the focal lengths were completed by early 1978. The Super-Angulons were multi-coated in the summer of 1978 beginning with the f/5.6 series. The f/8 lenses were multi-coated in late '78- early '79. Apo-Componon HM lenses have been multi-coated since their introduction in 1986."

From: http://www.schneideroptics.com/info/faq/photography.htm#q8

[Bob Gentile]

Weren't Canon, Nikon, Pentax, etc. hawking their multi-coated lenses much earlier? I seem to remember coatings on 35mm camera lenses from late 60's.

(Hard to be sure, though. A lot of what I remember from the late 60's never really happened.)

[Alan Davenport]

Canon had single coated lenses in the 60's, but I think they began multicoating in the mid-70's. Canon's designation "SC" is for single, "SSC" for multi...

I have a Caltar-rebadged SA 90/8, and it does indeed have "MC" on the barrel.

[Bill_1856]

Military lenses were multi-coated long before it became practical to do it (and shill it) for commercial lenses. The first hint that i recall wasn't actually flogged as "multi-coating" but the Noct Nikkor 58mm f1.2 was said to appear black due to special coating.

[Greg Lockrey]

Weren't Canon, Nikon, Pentax, etc. hawking their multi-coated lenses much earlier? I seem to remember coatings on 35mm camera lenses from late 60's.

(Hard to be sure, though. A lot of what I remember from the late 60's never really happened.)

I remember it that way too. I recall also the owner of the photoshop I worked for in Charleston, SC. suggesting that "multi-coating was just a cheap way to correct lenses, otherwise they'd be doing it with large format".