Source for Condit Punches

[michael_kravit]

Condit Manufacturing went out of business several years ago. Recently I

found a source for these punches. They are available in many sizes from 2-1/

4 and up from www.durst-pro-usa.com

 

Regards

Mike

[_________1]

When you call Durst Pro USA and ask them about it, you will hear one of two things: Yes, we have the product in stock, and Yes, we have sold many to many customers. Or variations on these lines.

 

My only advice is this: CAVEAT EMPTOR when dealing with them. Do NOT part with your money until you see the product physically. In fact, if you must, deal with them only on COD terms or with the use of escrow or a bank's letter of credit for large sums.

 

Once again, CAVEAT EMPTOR. You should hear the experience of this one guy I know who dealt with them.

[michael_kravit]

Yikes, what have I done. I found the punches and figured they might be a

great resource. Thanks for the heads up. I personally have never dealt with

the them. I sure hope your friend wound up ok after his experience.

 

Mike

[_________1]

Mike, you meant well. Well, just want to let you know that he looks like he is getting back on his feet.

[vince_pulvirenti]

The condit punches do show up on ebay from time to time, in fact there is an 8x10 condit punch currently up for auction.

[michael_kravit]

I received a telephone call this morning from another photographer who also

cautioned against doing business with Durst-Pro-USA. He indicated that they

attempted to rip him off for $2500. What he received was not what he ordered

nor was it in the condition he was promised.

 

I guess in one sense this was a fortuitous post as I was about to order a film

punch from them. A close friend was about to order a Durst Optimos enlarger

that is very expensive.

 

Thanks and your warnings are greatly appreciated.

 

Mike

[cxc]

If you need a punch, I'll punch you for just $250, not $2500.

 

[;-) look at my name]

 

CXC

[_________1]

He got taken for over $11 000. No, he did not get his money back. Similar to your friend's experience, the equipment was NOT delivered in the time frame assured (took NINE to TEN months from time of his full payment; he was assured that it was all packed up and ready to deliver to him immediately when he paid up in full), was NOT in the working or physical condition he was promised. Had no working equipment, lost all his clients, got sued by his clients as they had deadlines too, lost his pants and shirts in out of courst settlements, his creditors came after him, cleaned out all his savings...it was the worst nightmare to befall anyone.

 

And it all started because he trusted the words of Jens Jensen and his merry men.

 

Don't let it happen to your worst enemy. CAVEAT EMPTOR.

[jens_jensen]

Mike, I got your email and saw the very negative remarks about my company and my self. I am truly sorry about this very unfair and untrue story.

I have never before heard the name Anatole France before. Anatole France is not a customer of ours.

And Anatole France is committing a grave sin here, she is spreading malicious slander, and that is illegal and punishable. The remarks made by �Anatole France� are untrue.

 

I dare Anatole France to come forward with her name and address. I will be glad to send her full documentation for my remarks below. I will not pursue the slander issue.

 

Let me tell you about our customer Rene Quan in Singapore. I believe that �Anatoile France� is Mr. Rene Quan or that Mr. Quan is a friend of Anatole France. I recognize the remarks made as being 100% identical to the remarks made by Mr. Quan.

 

Mr. Quan placed an order for a $17,000.00 custom build enlarger. He placed the order on November 2001. He paid the down payment of $860.00 (!!!!!) several weeks later via a refund check issued by another supplier. Mr. Quan had asked for and was granted permission to pay the first 50% of the machine price in increments over the next 10 months. Mr. Quan asked for and was granted delivery before the full payment had been received from us. Remember he is in Singapore and I gave him the credit without even asking for credit references.

We did not receive any payments at all until August of 2002. We had a fully finished $17,000.00 machine sitting for 9 months. At that time we did not want to ship without getting paid in full.

The suddenly the payment arrived and then delivery had to go fast. Before delivery could take place Mr. Quan changed the contents of the accessory package 3-4 times which we accepted without any extra charge.

It is correct that this order was delayed first 2 and then 1 week in respect to the date the customer wanted it delivered.

When we did not hear anything from Mr. Quan for 9 months we had �borrowed� parts from Mr. Quans order for other customers and needed two weeks to replace those items. Then Mr. Quan suddenly contacted us and asked us to delay shipping for a few days because he had bought a 5x7� Durst from another dealer. Mr. Quan asked us to pack the 5x7� with the enlarger he had bought from us. WE offered to do so at no charge. Five weeks later he contacted us and told us that the 5x7� deal had went sour and that we should not expect to pack it for him. He the wanted us to ship the enlarger he bought from us the same day. I was not in the office and because of all the previous confusion it did not get shipped till one week later.

We did not charge any interest for the 9 months where we did not get paid.

Mr. Quan is one of the four dissatisfied customers we have had since November 2001 when he placed his order.

 

In contrast to �Anatole France� I can document every word I have stated.

 

We are not perfect, and we do not have a 100% success rate. We are a very small company striving to make our selves worthy of the markets trust and confidence; it is not easy in a �cutthroat� market where recession is the daily news.

 

We offer our customers a 5-year warranty which we honor 100%, we have had less than 10 issues since the start in 1997.

We offer a 5-day unrestricted right of return on all items, show me anyone else doing that.

 

We never ask for full pre-payment. 20 to 50% is our normal request depending on the type of order. We have taken full prepayment for enlargers only three times in the last year and none of those customers have had any complaints.

 

We have had to refund funds received twice since January 2002. We have had some serious delivery problems with glass and with vacuum walls. We paid interest on the returns. Our glass delivery is still not working and we are seriously considering giving up that project. We did give up delivering vacuum walls and easels, as it turned out we were unable to do it right.

 

I am very proud of the work I do, I have many satisfied customers, several have become friends, a fast calculation tells me that we have about one dissatisfied customer for each 30 satisfied customer.

 

We have customers who take advantage of us, more than 3 in 30. The most grave example was a customer who purchased a custom built $27,000.00 enlarger, and returned it within the 8 days with more than 6000 exposures made, he did not know the electronics had a counter!!!!

 

What can I say, the world is not perfect.

 

Finally, I am curious to know who it was that told you we had tried to rip him off for $2,500.00? I have no knowledge of such an instance.

 

Sincerely

 

Jens J Jensen, DURST-PRO-USA, Inc.

[jens_jensen]

I was just going over the Rene Quan file and want to make a clarification to my previous reply.

�Anatole France� writes �He got taken for $11,000.00� The reason the amount differs from the $17,000 I mention is that the order originally was made for a $17,000.00 machine. Mr. Quan then reduced it to $11,000.00 Mr. Quan actually reduced his order to $11,002.00 from the original $17,000.00, he did so over several adjustments without having the original rebate reduced. Mr Quan called and emailed several times and explained how badly he needed this machine and how little funds he had. And I tried to help.

 

After the machine was received we got lots of praise from Mr. Quan, and we recently helped him make modifications to fit his needs. He must have forgotten to tell �Anatole France� about this �Happy ending� on the story.

 

And then a question, how can a person have expressed satisfaction have been �taken� ?.

 

I will post some of Mr. Quans emails and his amended order confirmations on our webpage sometime next week. I will then post a link on this page.

[jens_jensen]

Re. PHOTO.NET posting. May 7, 2003.

I have now posted some of the more than 140 emails and replies from Rene Quan on our website. The link is: www.durst-pro-usa.com\complaint.htm

I have chosen to post the last few emails first since the satisfaction expressed in these emails are the last emails we have received from Mr. Quan. These emails is in stark contrast to the issue described on PHOTO.NET.

After the initial 3 emails I have tried to post emails illustrating the issues of Pre-payment and delivery. The emails clearly illustrate that we have bent over backwards to satisfy Mr. Quan, using his own words.

It has been quite a job going through that file and I decided to post only a few emails and documents in order to make it accessible. I have posted the emails in their full length and have highlighted the parts that I find of importance. If anyone wants the subjects covered in more detail, just let me know.

The emails are available for inspection, both as paper originals and on our hard drive, for anyone whom may want to insure them selves that they are authentic.

You may find that I am blowing this issue out of proportion, and I regret having to do go through this issue in this manner. However, I have already had orders canceled because of this unfair smear campaign, and feel it necessary to defend my self. I am not a big multinational company and loosing one $15,000.00 really hurts, not only the economy but also my pride.

Another reason for going to these lengths is that I have learned that another small Optical supplier was attacked in a similar manner last year, and that he lost a large chunk of his turnover in the following months.

None of us are without fault, even Mr. Eastman (Kodak) made mistakes, in his first years and had to recall 100 thousands of cameras and almost went out of business because of it.

The internet is really powerful and can ruin years of work in no time. Take care how you use it.

 

Sincerely, Jens J Jensen, Optical enlargers in USA.

[jorge_gasteazoro4]

So, do you have any Condit punches in stock?

[jens_jensen]

Yes, we certainly have condit-type punches in stock. They are available both as diagonal punches and as side punches firring Durst Micro Pin system. Durst Micro pins and Condit original pins have exactly the same size, the difference in thickness is 0.024 milimeter Our Condit type punches are in many ways improved over the original Condit punches, the have double pin action springs, double pressure bar system and the side punches have a variable start-stop point.

 

Jensen, DURST-PRO-USA, Inc.

DURST-PRO-USA, Inc is a very small independent and personal company. You are welcome to contact us, or me personally, for any kind of advice in regards enlarging and Durst enlargers.

DURST-PRO-USA Inc, is a small company independent of the factory except for the fact that we are their distributor of optical enlargers. Our price level is certainly aimed at small individual users, and we back it with a 5-year warranty, 8 days of unrestricted right of return, our personal service etc.

 

Sincerely, Jens J Jensen DURST-PRO-USA, Inc and WORLD-IMAGES, Inc.

[jorge_gasteazoro4]

Well Michael, perhaps Mr. Jensen is willing to send you the punch COD via UPS. If you never get it you are not out of any money. But at this time I would certainly give him the benefit of the doubt. I will keep him in mind for a punch, seems he has some nice ones.

[michael_kravit]

After posting this thread with the intention of providing a source for punches

that are now somewhat hard to find, I feel bad that this thing turned into a

prize fight. One thing that many people forget is that this is a VERY public

forum. Statements made are sometimes construed as gospel and 100% true.

 

Sometimes people have varying agenda and do not always relate their

experiences as the truly were. Sometimes we just forget as time goes by and

we think that someting happened a certain way and forget that one little fact

that brings a whole new light to the situation.

 

I have spoken with Jens by telephone and he has indeed offered to send me

the punch without any payment whatsoever. If I like it, I can keep it and make

payment, if not he asked me to send the punch back. A very reputable and

sincere offer in my mind.

 

Mike