the Bausch and lomb plastigmat

[snuck]

I have a question about this lens. First of all, with both elements used together it has a maximum aperture of 3 on the brass casing when both elements are used, however due to some online research that I've done, I somehow doubt that this convertible lens has a max aperture of 3 in practice, as other convertibles had smaller max apertures. Can anybody tell me whether the max aperture of the B&L Plastigmat 5x8 is ACTUALLY 3? that would be pretty wide! Don't hesitate to put down really wide apertures, since I am relatively new to the LF world. Finally.. what the heck... is it any good?
Cheers

[Ole Tjugen]

That "3" would be a US aperture, I believe. The US system is equal at 16 (US 16 = f:16), but doubles for every stop. So US 8 is f:11, US 4 is f:8, and US 3 is about f:6.8.

The lens should be quite good, though.