The early Voigtlander petzval thread was deleted by Ralph Barker, but I wanted to complete my thought on antiques that have been altered. Do collectors want mint, unaltered condition antiques? Yes. Do they pass on rare items, because there was an alteration? No, at least I don't. It would be nice if everything a collector buys was in perfect condition, just like the day it was made. But for early 1840s lenses, that's pretty hard to attain. Most lenses were used by generations of photographers, and as each new technology came about, they were sometimes altered to match the needs of the new medium.
Many lenses were cut for waterhouse slots in the transition from daguerreotypes to wetplate collodion. I don't prefer cut lenses, but if there is a early American daguerreotype lens sitting in a shop I'm not going to pass it by if the price is right. And the prices should reflect alterations. I agree with that. So a cut lens is worth less than an uncut one. And and uncut one is quite rare, because photographers in the 1860s would commonly cut them for wetplates, rather than buying another lens with the slot. Remember, a large Petzval in the 1840s through the 1860s was a professional piece of business equipment, costing close to a year's salary. They weren't just cheap items to discard. I kind of like some of my early lenses that are cut - I know they were good enough for photographers, a hundred years before "collectors" were born.
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