Mystery lens: what kind of Takumar do I have?!

[PaulWhiting]

I recently bought a used Omega B-22 enlarger that came with what the

seller called a 50mm enlarging lens. When I opened up the pkg, it was

a Takumar 50mm f/3.5 screw mount lens but it had a focussing ring and

a pre-set diaphram, ie you would choose a stop for the correct

metered exposure, then open up for composing and focussing.

 

It sure looks like a camera lens, not an enlarging lens. But when I

showed it the local used camera guy, he could find _no_ reference to

it in the Orion Blue Book _nor_ McKeown's vintage camera book.

 

Also, the thread is not the standard Pentax 42 mm, it's smaller

because we tried fitting it to a vintage Pentax screw-mount body.

Then we tried fitting it to a Leica 39mm adapter ring but it was too

small for that, too. The lens came with an adapter ring which looks

to bump it up too something larger than the Leica 39, but that was

still smaller than the standard Pentax 42 when we tried that combo on

the camera. Hope all this make sense!

 

Is it valuable? Rare? Or...?

 

By way of further information, the lens also reads "Asahi-Kogaku No.

78205".

 

I decided not to use it as an enlarger lens, got a used EL-Nikkor on

eBay. It probably is not flat field but who knows ... so what do I

have here?!

 

TIA all,

 

Paul Whiting

[John Farrell]

You have a lens for an Asahiflex, the early 1950s camera produced by Pentax. It has a 37mm lens mount.

[PaulWhiting]

Thanks very much, John... next question I guess is, is it worth anything to a collector? If so, how much, would you estimate?

 

Thanks,

 

Paul

[amul]

It's an amusing irony in classic cameras (and most collector items) that the better the quality of an item, the less it's value on the collectors market. Since lens are hard to destroy short of gross negligence, their value to collectors is minimal.

 

Now, if you're talking about a camera that break just sitting in your attic, then that's worth thousands of dollars.

[PaulWhiting]

Thanks, Amul!

 

Paul