"The Holy Grail of Pinkham lenses" What is your Holy Grail of soft focus Lens

[Emil Schildt]

I have a 300 mm persheid for ya.... BWAH HA HA HA!

dare I ask?

[Jim Galli]

Might be fun for 3 or 4 of us to bid that Pinkham up to $1,500,000 or so What the guy deserves.

I don't bother with Holy Grails of Silver Bullets. I have a lot of respect for all of the classic soft focus designs, and oddly I often default to $30 lenses for my soft images even though I own a bunch of the holy moly ones.

[Mark Sawyer]

I don't bother with Holy Grails of Silver Bullets. I have a lot of respect for all of the classic soft focus designs, and oddly I often default to $30 lenses for my soft images even though I own a bunch of the holy moly ones.

Agreed. Holy Grails aren't necessarily every-day beer-drinking glasses, but once in a while, when you're feeling divinely inspired, it's nice to pull out a sacred relic...

[Geoffrey_5995]

"When he didn't send the lens he told me to cancel the transaction and that he would immediately relist it with the $350 buy it now so I can buy it again, saying the original description was wrong and he didn't want to break eBay rules."

That's wonderful! He doesn't want to break ebay's rules. Did you tell him about the rule that says sellers are supposed to ship items that people buy and pay for?

He actually fed me two stories when he wouldn't send the lens. The first was that he wanted to change the description to be in compliance with eBay rules. The second reason was that he needed me to cancel the transaction so he could relist it so he wouldn't need to pay taxes on it twice. Every time i dealt with him it was one lie after another. I said I still wanted the lens and went as high as $1500 but wouldn't send it to me for less than $3000, which is an outrageous amount for a parts lens that will never be complete because it was missing the front cell. In any case I didn't agree to cancel the transaction and was told by an eBay rep that this would count against him. Well, it gets better because I reported him again after seeing the lens listed on eBay, and got different stories from several eBay reps. I was certain that eBay would remove the auction this time but was first told it would need to be investigated, then that it would be removed, the seller would get a strike, and one rep even told me that there was no reason to remove it and that if eBay removed this seller from the site for these bad practices this would be a dis-service to other potential eBay buyers, true story. My last contact with ebay was with a supervisor who finally told me that there was no report originally opened for not sending the item because he refunded the money so this guy got away scott free. I said "isn't the transaction legally binding per eBay rule and the law?" He said I could only take legal action outside of eBay and that eBay would not take any action. I asked him why he was able to resell the item on ebay when I already bought it and he wouldn't address this issue. And buyer protection with this supervisor was a non-starter. This experience left me even more cynical and disparaged about eBay than I already was. So this guy is still lying about the lens claiming he found the missing element that he previously claimed he never had and bought the lens with only one lens and I pointed this out to eBay showing them the two descriptions and they still do nothing. C'est la vie. It's clear I wasn't destined to get this one but there's always another one around the corner.

[eddie]

Geoff

I looked. No feed back from u for that seller. Better go look. Maybe u can still leave neg!

[cdholden]

Geoff

I looked. No feed back from u for that seller. Better go look. Maybe u can still leave neg!

I think it was a different username. That seller doesn't look familiar to me.

[cdholden]

So this guy is still lying about the lens claiming he found the missing element that he previously claimed he never had and bought the lens with only one lens and I pointed this out to eBay showing them the two descriptions and they still do nothing.

Look at the two optics side by side. They have a completely different look. The one on the right could be something from Surplus Shed. If after all you said you've done, and Ebay still sits on their hands, they have hit a disappointing new low in my opinion.

[Geoffrey_5995]

Geoff

I looked. No feed back from u for that seller. Better go look. Maybe u can still leave neg!

Hi Eddie, I left feedback and it is there. This is what I wrote in the comment field "SELLS BUY NOW CANCELS AUCTION WANTS MORE MONEY, EXTORTION! AVOID SELLER SCAMMER!" It was posted on May 11th. Geoff

[Geoffrey_5995]

"When he didn't send the lens he told me to cancel the transaction and that he would immediately relist it with the $350 buy it now so I can buy it again, saying the original description was wrong and he didn't want to break eBay rules."

That's wonderful! He doesn't want to break ebay's rules. Did you tell him about the rule that says sellers are supposed to ship items that people buy and pay for?

Hi Brian, Here are the emails he sent after he wouldn't send the lens and his excuses for why he cancelled the sale.

Dear berlinerantiquesaol,

Hi Geoff, I want to sell you the lens but first need to cancel the original auction and relist it for you with the correct description and the missing lens that wasn't included in the auction. If you don't want to cancel it then I guess we can't work the deal out. Please don't threaten me with negative feedback, etc. Let me know if you will cancel the auction. Thanks

- coinopbuyer

&

Dear berlinerantiquesaol,

Hello Geoff, Same price. I would coordinate the relist with you so that you could instantly hit the buy it now. Nobody else would be waiting for the relist. I just looked to see if I could send you another transaction cancel but I can not on my end.. By the way, do you have any idea what the part is that i have listed as a cinema camera lens? Thanks, Nick

- coinopbuyer

&

Dear berlinerantiquesaol,

Hello, There must be someway to still cancel the transaction? I don't want to have to claim a sale twice. Thanks, Nick

- coinopbuyer

&

Dear berlinerantiquesaol,

Hello, I meant i would have to claim the sale for tax purposes. There must be another way to void it. It's late, I will check on it tomorrow. Thanks, Nick

- coinopbuyer

[Geoffrey_5995]

Well, the lens ended and then he rilisted it at $6999 buy it now and kept lowering the price to finally $1699 but it did sell so he reilisted it again with with buy it now $1699, I might have my number wrong, but finally it sold with best offer of $1500, which is what I offered him when he refused to send it. C'est la vie. I don't think it's worth even that but it is the only Pinkham I've seen that has doublet engraved on it. The only other doublets I'm aware of are Semi-Achromat Series III f4.5, the Visual Qualities and the Bi Qualities which were not manufactured by Pinkham & Smith but only Pinkham long after P&S were out of business. But, I do have a very rare and interesting P&S Synthetic Doublet f4 that can be seen on Dan Colucci's soft focus page #1. So early pre-Visual Quality doublets are very rare and worth researching. Geoffrey