[johnnyrod]

I reckon at least half of the ones I looked at on the Bay of Pigs had dead cells, so I hung on to find one that worked. I don't know if it's the age or something else, because all the non-folding Contessas I have seen have good cells - that's at least 4. Mind you the one in my Super Ikonta is also just fine, and the Japanese cameras too, so maybe it's more a Contessa 35 thing. I read a while back about possibly regenerating them, I wondered about it as I could get the bits from work. You'd have to heat it to about 200C and in an atmosphere that is either reducing or high CO2, no idea how much or how long! Alternatively I've read somewhere about people using pieces of silicon photocell instead.