Great lenses for sure. But the specific number (<5000) still has a whiff of 'if something is repeated often enough, it will become common knowledge' about it. 5000 seems big for a single run of lenses and your serial is well under 5000 - from that, I get a statement more like "The earliest lenses are better than later lenses and within the first 5000 there is a batch that seems best of all". To say all those 5000 are the best, or that any pair under 5000 will be equally great, feels a bit too much like extrapolation for me to be comfortable with.
"To this date I am the only one to provide actual examples of what the Under 5k Serialized Ruby Lenses look like." - the analyst in me definitely needs a bigger sample size!
I think we can agree yours are great examples of ruby lenses, but personally I can't make the stretch to <5000 serials were the best without it feeling a bit too much like received knowledge. It could be that, after a bunch more investigation and analysis, I could be but it doesn't look like we have the material to do that, unless there is a great hidden stash somewhere (I wish). I encountered similar things in researching watches, where records are often even less complete and for me it often still comes down to how confident someone is in expressing an opinion rather than always being able to deal in absolute facts.
We've heard that the process changed in terms of reducing the "bake time" to increase throughput, meaning that later lenses got less red. I can buy that, it makes sense in what I see. But, as to the exact point that happened, do we know?
Interesting discussion to me, this one. Thanks.
But yeah I might as well find some good looking non fruby lenses and replace them while I use them.
