Kodak lenses from my youth

[puderse]

Having put 126mm Anastigmat and 127mm Anastigmat Special lenses on lensboards for my baby Graphic, I fail to see any difference in image quality between shots of the same subject on the same roll.

Why do the Specials command nearly twice what anastigmats seem to be worth? They both are modified Tessar formulas.

Brian Wallen's website depicts them the same.

On the neg of the attached scanned print, using my Nikon SMZ645 dissecting microscope, I can discern details in the cuticle of the angel's big toenail.

Seems pretty good for a 1947 lens.

 

[graywolf]

After all these years there really would not be much difference in the two lenses.

The red Special meant the lens was soft coated on the inside surfaces, the haze (Bloom) that develops over decades on a lens does approximately the same thing. So, if you bought the camera with the Special lens you did not have to wait 20 years or so for that to happen naturally. Today, the higher price is due to relative rarity, something that is important to collectors, but not to shooters.