What's with the new KEH rating ?

I've bought Bargain and Ugly stuff from them and have always been happy with the results - cosmetically challenged but always worked fine with clean glass. But if the glass itself is Ugly, I'm not so sure that I'd go there.
 
I don't know what else is going on there, but I just visited the KEH sitefor the first time in quite a while and was amazed at how much their inventory in film equipment had shrunk compared with past years. E.G. there was a grand total of 4 screw mount Pentax bodies for sale, and far less Mamiya RB equipment than in the recent past. I also noticed significant price drops on film equipment, except for high end brands like Rollei and Leica.
 
Perhaps the supply of decent film equipment is starting to dry up. People who wanted to be rid of their film gear may have unloaded it on the market over the past 10 years, and it has now gone to those other people (like me) who plan to keep it and use it.
 
I was going to make a joke before reading the serious issues mentioned by Rayt.. now i'm just going to murmur, oh.

loquax may have a point here though; maybe it's all dried up, hold onto your gears folks!
 
Sad that the front element got marked up - but it's not going to affect the fundamental performance of the lens. I'm sure someone is getting a bargain out there now.
 
fotomeow said:
what is "Earth Glass" anyway?
Click to expand...

I'm sure they meant "rare earth glass." The Collapsible Summicron had one of its glass elements made of lanthanum glass. Lanthanum is a so-called "rare earth" element in the periodic table. The glass also contained an impurity, Thorium, which is radioactive. But not to worry. I've had mine since age 30, and I'm still here at 71. It's not that radioactive. It does take on a yellow tint eventually; great for black & white photography!
 
The makeup is much more swayed in the direction of thorium rather than lanthium. Thorium dioxide glass is well known for it's high RI and was in quite a few 60s-70s era lenses.

All ionization of the containing glass, which manifests itself as yellowing - or functioning as a yellow filter, are reversible with UV - either artificial or natural.
 
Update on this collapsible summicron. I've had good luck with KEH so I decided to roll the dice....JACKPOT!!!

Just received the lens. The barrel is in excellent-plus shape and the glass is almost pristine. Whoever had this thing before really babied it. No scratches on the glass and only a couple of bits of dust inside. Absolutely nothing that will affect IQ in any way. It is, however, "hot" glass and I'm guessing that KEH called it "Ugly " because the glass is a slight bit yellow due to its Thorium component.
 
If it had turned out to be bad all it would have wound up costing you was the return postage.

So all's well that ends well. Good for you! The hand-wringers are kicking themselves now...

Chris
 
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