[johnnyrod]

Merry Christmas to you too! Am off to bed soon but have been checking out my presents. I'd suggested a Zeiss Contax to Mrs Rod as she was struggling for present ideas, really though without hope of getting anything. She spent ages looking into them (it's pretty murky, what went on back then), but as she was getting more frustrated I suggested a Kiev instead. So opened things this morning and was very happy to find a Kiev 3, great condition (just a few scratches on the front of the lens), looks to be fully working. Anyway after we had all opened everything she pulled out another box... containing a Contax IIa. I'm still a bit unclear to be honest but she got the Kiev for a good price and I think the GAS had taken her. Anyway I'm pretty happy as you can tell, I need to check them both out properly before putting film in them. The 5cm f2 Sonnar on the Contax has a small mark in it somewhere, am hoping it's not serious, and the RF window is so dirty that the patch is almost invisible - so I am hoping that cleaning it is the only problem there. The spring lock for the lens mount is broken, but you have to fairly twist the lens to dismount it, so it's not a deal-breaker. Not really looked at the Kiev yet, not had much time, plus it's a lot cheaper so in terms of any comeback on the seller (if required) then I checked out the Contax first. Beautiful piece of kit though. Also got some photo storage boxes and a voucher for processing. And a metric tonne of liquorice, God help me.