From what I understand about Biogons is that you don't want to buy one in a Copal, those have been retro mounted after manufacture. Apparently some glass was allowed to melt inside the barrel to seal it up and when it was mounted the seal had to be broken etc and the fear of damage and stress to the remaining cells/elements was always there. The ones in the Compur shutters were MADE to be that way and were quite a bit rarer.
Thats my 1.3cents!
CP Goerz.
A small addition to Andreew's post. I know that Steve Grimes purchased quite a few of these around 1999 - 2001 to fit into Copal shutters. I remember seeing one in his shop sometime in 2000. We talked about the lens and the amount of work required to fit it into a shutter. It was a lovely piece of glass. I also recall Seve's wonderful smile when we were talking about why folks spent so much money on the lens .... not sure he understood it either, but it sure was good for his business.
Ted, I have a very different recollection of Steve and his 75/4.5 Biogons. When I had an opportunity to buy a small heap of 38/4.5 Biogons in AGI F135 shutters, he warned me fairly strongly not to gamble on them. He told me that he'd bought what he thought were the last three pallets of USAF surplus 75s in the hope of remounting them and making a killing. But after he'd bought his, more surfaced and he was stuck, his monopoly evaporated. He was somewhat bitter about the adventure.
Adam, who bought SKGrimes, 75 Biogons and all, has characterized preparing them to go in shutter as "rainy day work." I think that SKGrimes-remounted 75s are safe to buy, Andrew's warning notwithstanding.
Cheers,
Dan
Dan, nope same recollections. Timing. When I first talked to Steve about them it was before the other batch surfaced. I was also being too obtuse in my original post, his 'smile' was a sardonic one. While he was hopeful of making $$ my impression was that, to the extent you could ever get Steve to say something bad, he was not as impressed with the lens as others were.
I do agree that the ones he remounted are likely safe to buy although I never bought one and am perfectly happy to keepworking with my 75mm SA.
come on guys...if you found your Biogons 20 years for a buck...good for you. A nice vintage lens as the 75 Biogon is of course worth 2K, anything else would be degrading the lens in any way as a high-end classic.
A new Grandagon N 75 is more expensive, a SWC as someone mentioned is more....an Alpa Biogon 38/4,5 1st version is worth USD 20.000 to serious collectors.
We should not disguard the value collectors set on some of our beloved lenses, even though it might be more that some in this foru mis willilng to pay. We all have our strange ideas...personally I thing USD 2600 is way out of range for an banged up dagor 30"....catch my drift ??!!
the 75 Biogon is of course worth 2K, anything else would be degrading the lens in any way as a high-end classic.
What do we care what other people think? If all of a suddent the Biogons went into the public toilet of opinion, it wouldn't change the glass and I, for one, would be tickled pink to get them cheap.
That's an outrageous price. Who in his right mind would spend so much for a 75mm Biogon?
--
mindless
Strange behavior occasionally does happen on eBay. Occasionally there is the 'winner's curse'; then, as noted above, there is the occasional mysterious bidder with a slim record but eagerness to pump up the bid.
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