The 501 C is a good camera. Not very much different from the 500 C/M (fixed wind crank, no signal window, other foot) or any other 500 C(...) model.
It originally came with a CF lens less the F-mode, thus called a C lens, but very much a CF lens less the F-mode, and not a Synchro Compur C lens. So which one, which type of C lens is it?
Anyway, optically, except for the rare very earliest and later CB lenses, they are all the same. So though a Synchro Compur lens works a bit differently, it produces same quality images.
T or T* coating is a difference so small that it's almost ridiculous to think of it as a difference. (But you will need to use a lens hood, even with T* lenses.)
The ergonomics of the old type C lenses are somethign that needs adjusting to. The shutterspeed and aperture rings are interlocked (to maintain EV when changing settings). You can only change aperture by changing both until the desired aperture is set, then release the interlock and change the shutterspeed to the one you want. Since the aperture scale can extend past either end of the shutterspeed scale, it may take two goes to set the desired combination.
The all metal rings are also a bit harder on your hands than the later smoother ones. The rubber grip focusing rings of later lenses are much nicer than the scalloped metal ring of a C lens.
But it's not too bad. Not at all.
