I canf believe my luck today. Jury duty all day (im juror number 4) and had to work when i got home. I have a pentax 55mm on my auction sesrch terms and been looking all day. Checked all night while working cause i have some down time and seeing a lot in Japan. Then out of the blue one popped up in the US and it says 67, rubber grip, and f/4. Not the 6x7 and knurled grip. Looks like a seller has many things for sale but not camera equipment. And it was BIN for 149 with free shipping. Now i got the 3 lens kit that i wanted.
The designations of the lenses can cause confusion and are often lazily interchanged by sellers and dealers as if it doesn't matter, but it does in terms of old optics versus those which have improvements and handle better. The earliest
6x7 Asahi Pentax Takumars date back from the late 1960s when the Honeywell and Asahi Pentax 6x7 cameras first appeared. Then came the
Pentax 6x7 designated lenses, and finally in 1989, a number of lenses (45, 55, 104 and the limited production 75mm f2.8AL) went through minor improvements (e.g the 45mm f4 was fitted with a rear gelatin filter holder) and cosmetic updates and designated as
SMC Pentax 67 -- the best of the lot in many ways, building on improvements over the decades, although a great many lenses are time-honoured Distagon designs. Many old Takumars will have haze and/or marked dust, balsam separation and possibly lazy apertures, so getting your hands on a lens for inspection, and working it is better than relying on a dealer who has incorrectly described the lens or worse, not mentioned something is awry! Yes, it's not always possible on auction sites, so as usual, buyer beware.
