Balsam Separation

[AidanAvery]

I am shopping around to purchase an old 210mm Voigtlander Heliar. Most of the lenses I see have some amount of balsam separation. Having never owned a lens with any separation, how concerned should I be about separation? And how do I judge, while looking only online, what is an acceptable amount that won't affect the image, and what amount will cause me problems visually?

Thank you!

[Kevin Crisp]

All anybody can give you is generalizations. A small amount of edge separation (let's say 1 to 5mm) isn't going to be an issue, especially if you don't use it wide open. More than that -- it depends. Well stopped down it can be considerably more than that and not affect your negative. It obviously would affect value. It is always possible it will get worse, but I've not had that happen.