[Leica] Buying an ‘Ugly’ lens from Keh

[Don Dory]

I can tell you directly.   They will not be able to tell you about a
specific lens,  there might be 10 on the shelf and they won't go out and
pull a specific lens.  If you are buying a $6000 lens whose value is
dependant on a specific feature or serial number range then mostly they
will confirm or deny.

Now,  ugly falls into one of four categories not exclusive to each other.
Ugly will always be functional unless specifically called out.

1) scratch or mar on the front element.
2) fungus inside
3) very visible haze, edge seperation
4) loose mount

While I worked there we would periodically pull an ugly and an excellent
plus lens and take photographs then pass those photographs around to see if
anyone could tell the difference.   If you pay very close attention to
contrast then sometimes you could.

Two more points,  leica lenses are graded much more harshly than almost any
other lens as they are looked over much more carefully by the leica
community.   The point of that is if it is fungus it will be very small;
large patches go to eBay.  An excellent Leica item might go LN- on any
other brand.   This will be denied by KEH but returns are tracked to
specific techs and the Leica community is very fussy.

Last, I have bought two ugly items from my former employer.   The first was
a Canon 300 2.8 L new FD.  The surface was beat to low finish levels,  and
the mount was loose.   Optics were superb.  The other was a contax III that
was ugly but it was collectable with a frozen shutter(listed).

Also,  if return shipping isn't a problem for you you still have return
privileges for a full refund.   Don't be afraid of ugly,  but I wouldn't
buy ugly if it was a lens that was going to support eating or paying rent.




On Tue, Jun 9, 2020, 11:43 AM Susan Ryan via LUG <lug at leica-users.org>
wrote:

> I’ve never had any problem buying ‘Bargain’ lenses from Keh, but I’ve
> never bought one rated ‘Ugly’? There’s an ugly 135 Tele-Elmer available. Of
> course I’d call and talk to someone to see what the glass flaws are that
> warrant the ugly rating, but has anyone had good or bad experience buying
> ‘Ugly’ from them that they’d care to share with me?
>
> Thanks,
> Sue
>
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