OT: camera damage from "the best" foam

After Chris had a heart attack and died in my kitchen, the loss of his camera gear was anti-climactic. In addition to the foam damage, the main body of his camera stuff was missing! (stolen by the county agents who "secured" his house?) A week before his death, we were taking some snapshots at Point Lobos, and he promised to dig out and loan me [permanently!] a 35mm summicron, and my choice of rigid or collapsible 50mm summicrons. I was also listed for the cameras in his most recent will, although the house is slated for somebody else. But, when we got access to the house, there were some gaps on some of the shelves. I would have kept one M body, and the summicrons, and sold off whatever else duplicated what I already have. How many bellows and how many 90mm Elmars can one want? On Sun, 30 Nov 2014, tony duell wrote: So do I. I would have kept my old visoflex and bellows, and sold off the Tele-elmarit and some of the rest. I sold the 180 Viso-M Tele-Elmarit to KEH. They've [probably PAINTED it and] listed it for $1272 in "bargain (damaged) condition". The glass came through OK! There might be some very minor damage to the front coating. The focusing still works, but not as smoothly, and has one rough spot. The lens barrel was a lot worse than a simple asset marking; it looks like a kid was playing with an engraver, and then stored it in a puddle. Frankly, anybody needing something in the 180mm range has a lot of [in my opinion] better options in newer gear. For example, my rangefinder coupled 200mm Komura or ANY SLR with a 200mm lens is WAY more convenient and easier to use than visoflex plus 180mm tele-elmarit - THAT is an extraordinary amount of weight and bulk. Therefore, the primary value of that lens would have been to a collector who wants the RARE aspect, and they want it to look good. Cosmetic damage is significant in THAT market. One of Chris' other friends really wanted the 2-1/4 x 3-1/4 Graflex with lenses, so I let him have it, but I kept the 47mm Super-Angulon which might even cover 4x5! I am now making adapters to put it on a tilt/swivel bellows for playing with movements on medium format, 35mm, and digital. Not very difficult - it's on a Compur 00?, which seems to be the same threads as what Schneider used for some enlarging lenses. When I first opened the case, everything felt WET. I thought that I was dealing with water damage. But, a few hours later, the foam had further metamorphed into a dry crumbly powder. Chris was doing his laundry at my house (last load was in my dryer). Does anybody here want a whole bunch of size XXL/2XL Cabela's shirts? How many BIG guys are there here? I've mentioned, on this list his PBM1000 computers (made by Wordstar corp, while it was still Micropro). But those, his books from the 1980s and 1990s, and his Sperry PCs got dumpstered before I got a chance to rescue them. -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com