Sitemap

Blog archives

Back Language

Saturday, July 19, 2008

Quest for the Grail

I think any collector reproduces the model of knights of the round table, ie the search for the unattainable, the object of legend. I think the craziest are stamp collectors, who must dream at night that they found in an attic "the" stamp, which was produced only at five copies and is worth millions... in the novels of Agatha Christie, they kill for that! when the Franc was current, which collector has not had a look on his little money, just in case he would find a one Franc from 1963, when he knows well that this year there was no 1F coin made...

For me, the virus struck without warning in July 1978, in the guise of a page of the user manual for my brand new Zenit E. This page listed the lenses intended for this camera, and appeared to me as a shopping list. Everything was there, from the accessible (the 2.0/85mm for sale at the same location) to the inaccessible (but I knew that later): the 2.8/180mm, produced and exported in dribs and drabs. The whole for prices much more reasonable than many other collections.

I just noticed something incredible: yesterday, we were on July 18 and it's been exactly thirty years since I bought my first Zenit. This collection has just 30 years!

Did Ebay kill the Grail quest?
This is a question that may arise in my case: the 2.8/180mm, I bought it in Russia without even having to leave my chair, I even have two ones! Fortunately, other lenses have been manufactured in the USSR and Russia, some of which in a very few copies, there still remains something to dream of at night, even if at daybreak I content myself with what it is possible to find!
Another Grail which long busied my sleepless nights called Zenit Automat: appeared in 1986 in a paper chronicling the Photokina, never seen since (one would have seen one in the Besançon area around 1987, but it is not clear...)
One day, I thirst after a long journey, and I stop to drink from a source (the "Leclerc" hypermarket at La Roche sur Yon) and then I fall on my knees (virtually, don't worry!) Here it was, waiting for me! so beautiful that since I have done very few photos with it, for fear of damaging it!
I think that what any collector looks for, is the emotion I felt that day...


Obviously, at the time there were not yet the twelve Automat purchased by Christophe via Internet... It breaks a little the magic!

Next, July 20, 2008: A bit of history: the origins of Zenit