altitude induced separation?

[Thebes]

This seems plausible to me. I live at about 7000 feet and we have all kinds of altitude quirks. For example, items packaged with those inflated bags are heavily pressurized when they arrive, often a few of the bags pop and its damaged packaging. I doubt that a lens would fail if it wouldn't have eventually failed, but I'm sure it would speed things up to pressurize those bubbles relative to the atmosphere.

UPS ground- if you shipped it hazmat, a pain to be sure and prolly want to include a couple ounces of metol or something make it legit... then it would have to stay on the ground wouldn't it? Of course your lens might still go through mountain passes that prove the final straw.

[Kevin Crisp]

Aren't Tessars air spaced?

[Sal Santamaura]

I suspect the rather intense high-frequency vibration experienced in a jet transport may have something to do with this.

[Paul Fitzgerald]

I think it has much more to do with the large, rapid temperature changes (take-off and landing) than with pressure differences.

Cemented lens would have at least 2 different types of glass, different expansion ratios, plus a third - the balsam.

Most cemented doublets have a rather thick negative element with a positive that has razor thin edges == MASSIVE expansion difference. Triplets would be worse.

Wrap the lens with temperature in mind if it's shipping by air, should solve the problem.

[GPS]

Aren't Tessars air spaced?

Is the OP's globe lens a Tessar?
Air spaced lenses in LF objectives don't suffer from altitude sickness either - they are separated by metal spacers firm enough even in high altitudes...

[Bernard Kaye]

Put a sound Rollei 35, a well made camera, with Tessar or Sonnar lens in its case on the jet's floor between your feet for an 8-12 hour flight and be prepared to have to tighten several screws inside that have worked loose from vibration. Larry Work, formerly a great camera technician in Dallas, showed this to me on my gear and others. I did jet a lot at that time. I think that this vibration will eventually get to loosen much.
Bernie Kaye

[Drew Wiley]

Altitude certainly makes a difference with anything "sealed", including farts. Everyone who backpacks knows how a bag of potato chips will almost explode at
high altitude from internal pressure. But since I carry lenses from low to high all the time, and have only had an issue under dramatic temperature swings, like an
80-degree difference from day to night, I don't think that modern lenses are very susceptible to simple pressure damage. After all, lenses on reconaissance aircraft change pressure far more suddenly than lenses in our kits, and they seem to hold up fine. Another kind of problem might be inherent in "hybrid" lenses which mix glass
and plastic elements, but these kinds of lenses are generally very small, hence
have relatively little overall dimensional change, and to my knowledge are not used
for large format work at all.

[GPS]

Besides, lenses are not airtight, especially the barrel lenses (the OP's Globe lens?)are not. Air seeps in minute amount through their threaded rings and barrels. That's how fungus is often introduced in between lens elements - the constant atmospheric pressure changes pump the more or less humid air in and out with fungus spores present in it or on the barrel's surface.

[domaz]

In some areas of the world the temperature drops 3 degrees for every 1000 ft. So going from sea level to 14000 ft you could go from 50F to 8F in less than an hour. You are unlikely to encounter that kind of temperature change in nature. Is an old lens designed for that? Doubtful.

[Steven Tribe]

I have separated quite a lot balsamed lens and always found them astonishly well stuck together even after more than a hundred years. Even the balsam in the middle is still sticky. I am convinced damage in flight is most likely a consequence of temperature change or even, co-incidence. Pressure effects (any holes in the balsam will vent through channels that have already been formed as the separation started) or vibration (there really isn't much anymore!) are not causes.