Huh. I never knew that about lenses. So, I guess you could say, that cameras themselves lose considerable value over time (barring certain circumstances) but lenses, if well taken care of, are a sound investment. With that in mind, back to repairing my wife's busted cameras, not that we would put the money into them, but I wonder if repairing the. Would increase their value substantially if they were made operable again with new lenses . . .

As an aside, I should look into Zeiss's stock history. Not that I'm an investor or anything, but I wonder if there's a correlation between their diverse target markets and the overall health of the company.

Both those books look really good. The Amazon description for Postwar make it sound very compelling, but one hell of a chore. You're dead on about The Ten Cent Plague though. Same with A-Z Photography. I think I'm gonna call my bookstore tomorrow and see about ordering them. If I can and I get my hands on them, I'll try to start a thread about them. I think I'd love to discuss both.