The Bi-Quality was made by Pinkham only and is a later model. The Visual Quality is the P&S model and is the "original" one. The designs are similar and I hear that the quality is pretty much the same.
Personally, I feel that there has way to much hype over that particular model, however. It was meant to be a middle-of-the-road kind of lens: soft wide open and sharp closed down. Sure, it's nice and I've seen beautiful pics made with it, but I think you could get fine images for a lot less money. Jim Galli's website had a whole page on this... maybe someone could provide a link?
Since Cooke offered the PS 945 everyone seems to equate "Pinkham and Smith" with the VQ model when, in fact, it was the Semi Achromat that established their reputation, being favored by a large number of early pictoralists. The VQ and certainly the Bi-Quality were introduced pretty much after the pictorial craze had subsided and seemed to be more aimed at the portrait photographers of the day.
I only have the Synthetic model and I think it's really a winner! Read the P&S literature available on Cameraeccentric's website [
www.cameraeccentric.com, I think] and see what they were advertising.
Best of luck with your quest. Please do post some images when you find your baby!
- Paul
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