After posting in the "Price Watch" forum re Lomography's half price deal (in the UK, at least), I picked up a new copy of the MC APO Telezenitar-M 2.8/135. It arrived a couple of hours ago, and I'm happy to say this 2012 model is almost identical to the earlier 2003 copy I own from the first production run, with very minor cosmetic differences:
- body is engraved "MADE IN RUSSIA", in large enough lettering that spy satellites could no-doubt read it from space
- font on the front ring is slightly bigger and all characters take up equal space, which means that the "I" in "TELEZENITAR" looks like it has big gaps either side of it
- focus distance markings are in yellow instead of white
- front cap reads "ZENITAR" in both Roman and Russian cyrillic lettering, instead of "ZENIT" in Roman
Other than that, it really is identical... Oh, except the new one is for export with English naming, and my older copy is a domestic market model.
I'll keep both copies for now until I finish the project I'm (very slowly) working on, then decide which one to sell - assuming, of course, I can bring myself to let one of them go