What makes an Apo Lanthar 210 f 4,5 so valuable?

[Gudmundur Ingolfsson]

There is an Apo Lanthar 210 4,5 lens for sale on Ebay and the owner wants more than 5 grand for it. What makes it so expensive ? Is radioactivity so expensive nowadays where you can have it all over Japan?

[Dan Fromm]

Asking price isn't selling price but there is an Apo Lanthar cult.

Your comment about radioactivity is in poor taste.

[Gudmundur Ingolfsson]

Excuse the bad taste ! I know the Apo Lanthar is a cult lens but why ? What makes it so special ? Please explain ?

[Sevo]

Chinese collectors, and their limited access to information - as many of them can only read Chinese (and few books and original specs were ever published in Chinese) they pretty much dangle from the strings of the Hong Kong used camera market and its hypes.

[Frank Petronio]

There is no photographic reason. A $200 Rodenstock or Schneider 210/5.6 from the late 1980s will be as good or better performer.

[Nathan Potter]

Collectibles. They are a rarity and at least a status item among lens collectors. Probably less to do with status than an appreciation for art in technology among serious collectors. The same psychology exists among gun and wine collectors. In a larger sense it is an appreciation and respect for what mankind has achieved. As Ludwig Wittgenstein surmised in his muddled treatise, Tractatus, the object is art itself.

It ought not to yield $5000 though.

Nate Potter, Austin TX.

[Dr Klaus Schmitt]

The absence of CA due to its advanced Apo correction?

[Sevo]

The absence of CA due to its advanced Apo correction?

Can be had from many lenses today, and across a wider angle and at a higher resolution too. It is unique in these properties for its age, though, which makes it a "collectors standard item" - and these "firsts" are generally a bit overpriced relative to less generally known collectibles, as they additionally attract beginners and casual collectors.

[Ernest Purdum]

Before the Apo Lanthar, apochromatic lenses for photographic work were mostly barrel-mounted lenses with apertures of maybe f9. The idea of an f4.5 apochromat in shutter for general photography was startling. I used a 300mm on 4X5 for a long time and really enjoyed the nice bright groundglass. On 4X5, the relative lack of coverage was an advantage. The only negative factors were the size and weight.

Price? Whatever the next highest bidder thinks it's worth.

[Lynn Jones]

These were darned good lenses (I've used several and sold quite a few of them from the B&J Lens Bank), however, low volume and fame make high prices. The Lanthar name makes it obvious that lanthunum "rare earth" glass was use used. This was an early use of rare eargh glasses although certainly not the first. The Kodak Ektar for the original Medalist was probably the first to use these.

Lynn