Originally posted by Docrwm This is the first time I have had lenses arrive in damaged packaging, and I have received a few
I had one earlier incident with a Russian lens - the Jupiter 11A. The seller had pics showing it in perfect shape with its metallic hood by the side. He made one mistake though - when he packaged and screwed the hood in reverse, he just did it half-way through. In transit, the package must have suffered a serious shock - being dropped from the plane might do it, I guess - the result was that the hood got pushed all the way on one side, over the threads, while the other side was still half way screwed. It turned out to be impossible to separate the threads, but luckily, the hood was formed of two pieces - a ring and a cylinder, and I could unscrew those after banging the lens on cement:
These Russian lenses have military grade build. I still can't imagine what shock could have pushed the hood over the threads like that - the outer packaging didn't show any special signs, although the inside showed an imprint of the lens case in one corner . The seller refunded me the money, so it all points to another shipping issue. I get a picture of people playing some sport with our packages somewhere in transit.
To end the story, that Jupiter 11 got pretty messed up - focusing is very rough, but surprisingly, the optics did not get damaged despite all my banging - I got some good shots with it and I still keep it.
Good luck with the Tamron! Let's hope the third time works for you.