APO-Lanthar value?

[Yuri]

I'm getting rid of my 4x5 stuff (shooting digital and 8x10 now). Everything is gone except apo-lanthar 15cm 4.5 - late coated version. This is the best 4x5 lens I ever had. I was trying to justify keeping it but it won't give me enough coverage for 8x10...
I did some research on ebay - apo-lanthars are priced $1500+ which I think is way too much. I can't find any other current price information for this lens. If anyone bought or sold this lens recently, would you mind sharing the price?

 

[edtbjon]

I'm not in the market for one, but $400-700 sounds fair. (One Linhof selected sold at around $400 (plus auction fees) in Sweden in Dec 07: http://www.lpfoto.se/... auction Apo-Lanthar.)

//Björn

 

[Steve Hamley]

I think Bjorn is about right. About 3 years ago I bought a perfect one with a sticky shutter for $425 IIRC, so I ended up with about $525 in it. Prices went higher after I bought mine, but I doubt you'd get a kilobuck for a 150mm today. Maybe a 210mm, which I'd like to have, but I wasn't going to pay what people have been asking for them.

Cheers, Steve

 

[ljsegil]

I bought mine, a Linhof select in an excellent shutter for I believe $750 a little less than 18 months ago. As far as I can tell by monitoring eBay and some other forums, they have continued to appreciate substantially since then, perhaps another 25-50%, but I don't know if they are fetching those sorts of prices more recently. It seems to me it's worth a run on eBay and see if you can hook some collectors not yet afflicted by the world's woes. It is still a very sought after and valuable lens for 4x5, it seems a pity to let it go without a try on the auction site; a generous reserve price might help you establish current value without much downside risk other than listing fees.
LJS

 

[Yuri]

Thanks for info - I think something around $600-700 will be a good opening price for the auction.

By the way I tested it with my sony a700 (I mounted the lens on a macro bellows) - I was amazed by the absence of the chromatic abberations. Lens is corrected better than some of the modern lenses. Truly an APO lens. I have a pretty decent 100-300 minolta maxxum-APO lens and it shows more purple fringing than 50 year old APO-Lanthar.