I have just spent the evening compiling the first revision of PENTAX historical new street prices. This first rev. includes screw and K lenses of spring 1976, k an m lenses of Feb '79 and Oct. '81. These dates are interesting because spring '76 both a full line of screw and K were being sold and the K mounts were brand new ( although nearly all were reworked m42 designs) , feb '79 the M series were brand new, and late '81 was near the dawn of the "A" series.....
Some suprises to me, especially when adjusted for inflation. The first 80-200 F4.5 zoom was astronomical in price! The early K135-600/6.7 had an inflation adjusted price of over $3500 in 2007 dollars, thats got to be the most expensive K/M lens ever made. Over twice the price of the K15mm F3.5. Seems like the SMCK Bellows 100mm/4.0 was the cheapest real SMC K mount lens ever sold by Pentax. The k135/2.5 lens, which is now a prized collectors item was being closed out DIRT cheap in the early 80's, most likely it was "too big" in the M era! Anyway, I am going to vastly expand this as time goes by but this first version seems like it would be somewhat interesting to some Pentax fans I would think. Anyone can feel free to publish this if desired, it would have all slipped out sooner or later, but compilation credit would be appreciated. It was work. I got all the data from old magazine ad from back issues I bought on ebay. If anyone has any other data from magazine ads from other dates, I would glady add to the database compilation and redistribute. I would welcome others comments on these price values vs. lens models too. http://www.jchriso.com/temp/PHLPN.xls jco -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
