(Vocalized in my best imitation of Alan Cumming in Cabaret...)
My Honeywell SPII from Goodwill came today. There was a little surface dust, but that was easily cleaned off. The Goodwill pics looked much worse than it was. There's a couple of almost unnoticeable tiny brass spots up where you'd grip it, but the person who had this mostly left the case bottom on it looks like. The seals are okay but I do need to change out the bumper foam in the next few days. It's a bit crumbly. Probably I'll do both just to do them, but otherwise it's GORGEOUS. This SPII is in almost mint condition. Shutter is still smooth. So's the film advance and the dials. Nothing sticky so far as I can tell.
I'm still going to send it to Eric one of these days for a proper CLA but that will have to wait until I'm a bit more flush. I'll send the SPII, the SP-F and the K-X his way sometime next year I think if I can swing it. But right now a light seals job is the most it needs to make it fully operational. At least I think so. I'll know better once I do those and check it out by shooting it a little. I don't want to mess with the shutter too much though until I do those bumpers. I don't want to spread the foam dust all over the viewer. It's clean at the moment.
Lenses are just lovely too. No dust to speak of. They both work and they're nice and sharp, both of them. With shipping the whole thing was like $45 and it was well worth it. Heck the 35mm Viv wide angle usually costs that by itself. So I basically got the camera and the other lens for free and I was actually pleasantly surprised by the Caspeco 135mm. I'd read it wasn't a bad lens but this is actually pretty nice. Looks about the same as my Sears K 135, I think. Not quite Tak sharp, but very respectable. I am thinking it's a Tokina but I'm not quite sure. Looks like a Tokina Viv a lot though.
I'm happy. It was very disappointing to see how bad the other Honeywell SPII I found on CL turned out to be. I bought that kit for the lenses but in a sense that guy kind of ripped me off because that camera was nowhere near operational. This one is a really nice replacement for it. It's not my Asahi dream model but it will do. This one completes my trio of Pentax black beauties. (Quartet, if you count my GAF-CES-1 which I kind of do because it is a relative of sorts.) I am now among the truly blessed, and probably will stop collecting black Pentax SLR's now unless a perfect black Asahi SPII just happens to fall into my lap someday, grin...
I'm going to take a family portrait tomorrow and post it I think. But I've got to grab some foam and do the SPII seals first. I also need to see if I've got the top of a Spottie case to complete this set up. I think I do somewhere. Does anyone know if you can still purchase those round plugs that go onto the jacks? I really need a few of those. Are they brand specific or a general thing? I hate when they are missing on my Spotties.
Anal? Yeah, I know but I like to keep those covered since I rarely use them. I tend to like the look of a camera with them on better and I'm very fussy when it comes to my Spotties. I always like them to look their very best! I may just steal the leather protectors and the lugs off the one K1000 I have if they will fit. My SPII's always have seniority around here when it comes to being properly tricked out....
But it looks like the Goodwill crap shoot thing worked out very well, this time...
Last edited by magkelly; 11-02-2012 at 01:14 PM.
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