Da mein Deutsch
nicht unbedingt ervorragend ist, werde ich weiter
auf Englisch durchgehen.
Ich wünsche eine Anekdote
zu erzählen.
Since a few months, the revival of my never extinct passion for photography has led me to acquiring a few (more than a few?) vintage lenses. Some come very cheap indeed, not because they are faulty, but purely because the Japanese marketeers have "created" other needs. Some others have reached cult-status and you pay them a lot of money.
Sellers can be found all over the world, but duties and taxes restrict by and large the free trade to Europe. For some reasons, one of them being their low retail-price, ex-Soviet lenses don't necessitate heave custom formalities either.
Amongst those vendors, my big surprise is that "honesty" is quite prevalent. I've had a few minor disappointments but, by and large, the contacts are friendly to even jovial and the items correspond mostly to what they are supposed to be.
Recently, I placed an order in Westphalia for a very old Tessar, with an aluminium bezel, that obviously had once been part of a range-finder. The serial number indicates a seniority similar to mine !!!!! It was supposed to be of top-grade. Indeed, quality-control in ex-DDR, and even more so in the Soviet republics, was very variable, producing excellent copies and some poor ones, even in the same factory. You only know when you test them.
To cut a long story short, my very own one is a wonderful little lens. It arrived yesterday, together with a 5 euro mark and some coins. Explanation: the announced shipment fare (14,60 €) was an error and the vendor had only paid 9 €. And he returned me the difference!
Oh, by the way, his website is full of other very tempting items.
Methink he will hear of me again.
For those interested, here are his references:
Klaus Rademaker at www.classic-cameras-and-lenses.de
Danke sehr, Herr Rademaker, und sicher auf Wiederhören!
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