Jürgen,
As you can see in Richard Nordin's excellent book, there were two different Zeiss 250 mm lenses. They (both) pop up now and again.
It's rather more difficult to find the leather cases they came in
: anyone know where to get the one for the f/5.6 250 mm lens?
You mean you have a 1600/1000 F mount Planar? Or the first version 'C' 80 mm Planar?
Either way, i envy you. (Very, very much, in fact, if it is a 1600/1000 F Planar lens.)
The fact that items were built before they were put on the market, by the way, shouldn't stike you as being "strange". It would be strange if they only started making themn after they were put on the market.
I like the 135 mm Sonnar a lot too. Excellent performer. And great focal length.
The fun bit about collecting the pre-1957 stuff is that it is a limited set, and it's (almost) possible to indeed gather all items.
What i find most amazing though is that you can still find pre-1957 items new in box, in mint condition. 50 years (or so) later... still unused... not corroded away... the mind boggles.
There are a few must-have 'rarities' though that i haven't seen yet. But that is what keeps collecting enjoyable, isn't it?
Collecting is now easy, because cheap.
I have to restrain myself on many occassions, trying to convince myself there is no point in building an "early-C" (pre-1960) collection.
So there's another answer to Simon's original question: collectability.
Hasselblad cameras marked the beginning of a new era in MF photography. The system camera concept may not have been completely original, the time will have been ready for such a thing, and others surely would have come up with something similar if Hasselblad hadn't.
But Hasselblad was (to all intents and purposes) the first to show that 'it' could be done, and that it made a lot of sense to do so as well. And he showed that it could be done extremely well too.
So these things have, besides being excellent tools, a historical significance too. Reason for me to be interested in the person, the company, and the history of how things came to be.
And that was reason for me to want to have the actual 'historical' items too.
But only as an extra. I really am a collector of information; my desire to know is far stronger than my desire to have.
But 'collectioning' aside; i didn't begin my Hasselblad set as a collector.
The 'modern' stuff i chose because i wanted to take pictures, also am a sucker for quality, liked the system, and could not afford it...
In school at the time, i really couldn't. That caused some 'years of agony': i wasn't going to compromise what i thought was the best choice, just because i didn't have the money. I know that if i had, and had bought another, cheaper camera, i would have always regretted it, would always have seen it as 'second choice'.
I know, it's only tools, and not the only tools that can do 'the job'. But.. you know...
So i spent school holidays working in all sorts of industry.
Anyway, the other options i thought worth considering then were Mamiya RB, or Rollei SLX.
Mamiya i found far too big and heavy. Rollei was just as expensive as Hasselblad (and somehow didn't quite measure up to Hasselblad).
So it took me a quite while before i had 'a set'.
The square format, by the way, wasn't that important to me. It still isn't.
I tend to use the format the camera that i happen to be holding has, but don't mind which aspect ratio it is.
So the square format was not one of my selection criteria.
Versatility and quality, and ergonomics were.
I am endlessly enamoured by the bold statement of the square format when juxtaposed against the rectangle. Compositionally I feel "set free", no longer worrying about conventions. The digital explosion has overrun the world with rectangular images and when the eye runs across a square...well, lets just say it's like seeing a bright yellow 60's muscle car in a line of Honda Accords