I read this quickly at work, and immediately flashed-back to "Airplane!" where the question "how did this begin" was answered with the age of the dinosaurs. Too Funny.
When I was 6, I started taking most of my toys apart to figure out how they worked. By the time I was 9, I could get them back together again.
I knew that Russian optics were first-rate for a very long time, and just could not believe everything on the Internet proclaiming how bad J-3's were. Things like "If you find a J-3 that works, keep-it- you might never find another one".
So I bought 5 of them and took them apart. Sonnars- I am a Nikon fanatic. Been using a Nikkor-SC 5cm F1.4. Then, fell into a Contax IIIA with CZO, then bought the CZJ 5cm F1.5 for my Contax and found it needed to be shimmed and put it on a J-3 focus mount instead.
AND
"In the beginning, everyone used SONNARS because they were the fastest and sharpest lenses around. But then, Zeiss created COATINGS and the Planars inherited the Earth!"