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šŸ¦„ WTT: Alpa Helvetar 28XL or 60XL for Alpa Helvetar 120 ASPH in ā€œhelical 25ā€

akaru

Active member
Yes, I own a 60XL and one of the 50 ever made of the Schneider Helvetar 28XL 5.6 in Alpa mount.

Yes, I will trade one of them and this would be the trade of the century if we pulled it off.

In return I want a very specific version of the Helvetar 120 ASPH in the Helical Mount 25 version pictured here. I think it may be more common than the ā€œspecialā€ version, according to the Alpa website, but I prefer this build.

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Rod S.

New member

Rod S.

New member
There was no indication in the original post that the SK 25mm helical is sought as a collectible.

No condition was specified.

Indeed, @akaru wrote that he is seeking the "more common" version rather than the rarer special one.

But that's OK. Collecting is allowed. :)

SK stuff is nice.
 

Paul Spinnler

Well-known member
This is another variant - I think you can find five variants:

1) Linhof helical variant
2) 120N shorter helical variant in SB and LB
3) The helical variant he asks for in SB and LB which is based on a bit taller SK helical called "SK 25mm"

This is 120N SK short helical in SB34 - I have this one, and only ever heard of the OG, OG Linhof variant.

The 120N short helical is less tall than the SK25mm variant which is why the tube at the bottom is not flat even in the SB34mm config.

The ones to get are the SB variants with the shorter and a bit longer SK helicals as they're totally OG. The Linhof variant exists because when the 120 ASPH came out and they first mounted them they sourced helicals from Linhof as there wasn't yet an SK helical available, I understand.

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The Alpa 28 XL SK has a custom HPF helical and because the initially ordered only 50 of these and never re-ordered given the fate of the 28XL with the advent of 80 MPX CCDs which completely made them unuseable until BSI came along only 50 of these were made globally.

One of them is certified destroyed, so there's 49 left.

The helical is custom with HPF integrated as is the front barrel with a special step up wide enough for all sorts of filter w/o vignetting when shifting this lens.

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Rod S.

New member
Paul, that first picture you showed of the Alpa-branded SK Apo-Digitar 5.6/120 Aspheric in the 120N helicoid is unusual in being labelled as N-48Ā°. The usual designation for the 120 Aspheric is L-60Ā°.

I've seen only one other N-48Ā°, and it has the earliest serial number I've seen of any 120 Aspheric lens of the large format (not PC-TS) style.
It seems, therefore, that SK designated the initial production batch of 120 Aspheric lenses as N-48Ā° and labelled later batches as L-60Ā°.

That fits with your lens being fitted to the SK 120 N helicoid already in existence rather than the SK 25mm helicoid introduced later.

The special SK focus helicoid on the Alpa-branded SK 28 XL in your second picture is identical to those on SK-branded 28 XL lenses mounted to the Cambo WRS mount. The only difference is that the distance markings on Alpa-branded units are non-integers instead of the whole integers used on the Cambo mounted helicoids.

[EDIT: Initially I wrote N-60Ā° but meant L-60Ā°, as per the designation in the first picture included by akaru. I changed it after @Paul picked up my mistake.]
 
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Paul Spinnler

Well-known member
My late-stage one is labelled as L-60 and not N-60.

The Alpa variant of the 28 XL besides different markings has its own Alpa specific front ring, I think
 

Rod S.

New member
My late-stage one is labelled as L-60 and not N-60.

The Alpa variant of the 28 XL besides different markings has its own Alpa specific front ring, I think
Yes, I meant to say L-60Ā°. I've corrected my error in the comment above.

We'll have to compare our 28 XL lenses, I think.
 
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