This lens I got right here

Sure, I got quite a few metal cylinders where glass is mounted inside in different patterns and ways, but there's this rather special one. Production number 188 of a possible maximum of thousand ever made. At least according to the issued list of assigned serial numbers for this particular version of this legendary thing made of metal and glass. The mentioned list is from a certain company in Germany, so I would think it's quite accurate. No one knows how many actually made though, but the company itself probably.
And when this particular company issues special versions of things they used to make 50 years ago, only sky seems to be the limit pricewize. At least after some time has passed since delivery. You sometimes actually may get the impression you hold the holy grail itself in your hands.

One of many snaps done with the mentioned lens. In fact all of them in todays post are done using this thing. I seem to be learning to use the pics to give meaning to the words, eventually. 

I was aware that I own a rather special version of the Summicron thing, but truth is that I have not been thinking to much about it, and hence used it more or less in just the same way I would use any other lens. I am a lens user, you see, not a collector. My wife might look at this statement with a set of, let me say different eyes, but I am the one speaking now. 
I still like to have useable equipment to play with though, but when it comes to this particular item anyone a bit more into these things than myself would probably cry loudly if they knew that I actually used it attached to a camera. Walking the streets you know, pointing it in all kinds of directions and let it just hang there at my side dangling recklessly from that a bit less than half solid leather strap.

Joakim Nilsson from the band Graveyard singing his heart out in a small studio very nicely situated down by the sea on a small island just outside my home town of Ålesund, Norway. Ocean Sound Recordings... the name fits well enough, me thinks. Follow the link and have a peek! All things went wrong here, as I both pushed the film way over it's limits, and also made a big mistake when developing the film. There's still something about them, at least for me...

The manufacturer of this glass has a regime of etching their order numbers into stuff, and this tiny small cylinder has 11615 in nicely designed numbers written on the other side down there on one of them metal rings around the lens mount. If you got plenty of time you should go do a couple of fancy things on google and such, and you would find nothing much to be honest. But then on the sales-bay there usually seem to pop up a chance or two every now and then to get this thing inside the doors of your house, should you fancy so. Or maybe you will find out that you may use your hard earned money in a better way! 
Heck! I never thought the price had rised to this ridicolous level these days, so I am actually for maybe the first time in my history of owning cameras, really thinking about selling the thing away to someone that can take a bit more care of it than I will ever be able to do.
Well, it's not like I don't take care of my glass or anything, but I hate to walk around having to constantly remind myself not to break the thing. I feel kind of like being a concrete worker wearing diamond rings on my fingers all day, or something like that, having no clue what the feeling of wearing diamond rings on my fingers would be like. I know lots more about working with concrete, as it happens. But you know, destroying something slowly but certainly bit by bit each day.
There's a norwegian saying; throwing pearls for pigs... I don't know the english version, but I guess you can figure it out. What I'm saying is that I'm probably not the right person to own this thing. I am not worthy... to tell you the truth.

Then again, looking at the issue from a completely different point of view; why did the germans ever build this lens? This number 188 in that small series of maybe as much as a thousand. It's a great lens and it's well put together, believe me! Suits me fine it does as well when I point the thing into the somewhat right direction. Made to some of the best german specs ever, I have learned from todays reading about the matters.
They made it to make decent snaps, I would like to think. Not to sit inside some nerds hidden away vault somewhere we never would see the results of it being used.

Nah... I think I just leave it be just where it sits at the moment, more or less glued to my rangefinder from back in 1960. It seems to fit quite well on that camera, to tell you the truth. But OK, if someone would someday pay me the right ammount of pesetas for it I might just get myself another version of the same thing and use it in just the same way I have used this one. Still I would have money left to buy some film, B&W darkroom paper, maybe a used car or something else useful. At least a new camera strap...!
After all; a lens is a lens is a way to get light stick onto your film more or less the way you like it to stick. That's kind of the definition. Off that definition you could take what you need and use it the way you like, or you could argue a lifetime around what's more important of this and that... you know sharpness, bokeh... all kinds of fancy words going around inside a community of nerds like myself.
In my world they seem to be somehow over rated subjects anyway, and more or less worthless unless your style demand a certain look that by coincidence match the looks of this particular lens, no matter what type or make it is.

So, what's this you might ask yourselves?! Well, I only know it's a bridge over the old road that used to divide the area between two big shopping centers where I used to live. Then someone decided the shopping centers should merge into one... so they built this bridge over the road. It works as intended, I have heared from quite safe sources. I have used it myself as well, but I will not be the one to blame for wearing it out at some point...

Just to make this all clear. I bought this lens as a part of a few pieces containing the rangefinder camera, the lens, and a few other bits and bobs. One of them bits and bobs I lost a few months ago. An extra viewfinder as it happens, as these cameras used to be constructed with something you could either look upon as an in-built flaw or error, or you could look at it as just the right way to build it. It came without any possibility to put a 35mm lens on the thing and at the same time have a clue what you would get on the film. So you need one of these (only it had to be made in the 35mm version which is a bit hard to find these days). It's a bit over the top actually, as you might very well use your 35mm anyway and have a good enough clue if you got some experience with the 35mm vision in some way. 
Enough of that. I lost the viewfinder inside a taxi, and it was never seen again. At least not by me. 
So I thought I would get a new one. But nah... nope! This small bit cost almost as much as I paid for the whole balooba itself, and there is no way I can possibly order something like this and make anyone believe I need the thing. Not even at a fraction of the price it would cost me. So I leave it be.
Anyway, my point is that I seem to have done a good deal on the whole package at some point, at least if you keep an eye towards the bay and knowing that my lens is not that bad after all. It looks more or less as new, and I got all them boxes, leather bags, papers and everything that came with the lens from the old factory. It's a point obviously, if you ever want to sell stuff like this and bring in a good price at the same time. The collectors seem to care more about the fancy paperwork than how the thing itself works. 
I usually throw these things away, but in this case I did not. Looks like it might have been a wise decission for once. At least my kids might find out they want to get rid of a few things at some point in the future, and find out their old father actually owned something that might bring in a few pennies after all. They would never have thought that!

Oh... looks like I wrote another full story. But you know me by now, don't you? I obviously never read the book on how to make things short...!