I recall the Noct-Nikkor was extremely expensive when it was still available new, in its last years; the current second hand price is close to the inflation adjusted new price of the mid 1990s.
There was discussion earlier this year on NG on comparing the two [Noct vs Neo-Noct]. It is unlikely i will ever own a Noct as too many other priorities for wide-angle and telephoto glassware!
Given the precision craftsmanship by Nikon on each lens, one way to appreciate a Noct-Nikkor is as a bespoke lens in its own class. And as argued above, the value of a Noct of decent quality is unlikely to depreciate.
These two tests are useful...and see more background following....
https://photographylife.com/reviews/nikon-noct-nikkor-58mm-f1-2https://photographylife.com/reviews/nikon-58mm-f1-4gThis story was told to me by Ernie Mastroianni, then photo editor of Birder's Worldmagazine, in September 2006:
"About 10 years ago, a photographer at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (I was a photo editor there for 19 years) offered to sell me his Noct-Nikkor 58mm f/1.2 lens. He knew I was into astrophotography and thought that I might be interested in a high speed lens. He was right. I came up with the $175 that he needed and proceeded to enjoy taking pictures of the Milky Way with 20-second exposures, with no tracking and no star trails. It was an excellent portrait lens too, showing fantastic Bokeh and producing some excellent results for group and family pictures, being sharp from edge-to-edge.
But as I migrated to digital, I found that the lens was a bit too long and it could not be converted to a D-lens. It sat on my shelf until I noticed that someone sold one on eBay for about $1,200, although I was not sure if it was a scam.
So I put my own lens up for sale, hoping I might get a legitimate offer of about $1,000. The bidding immediately passed $1,000, but it was all from folks with new identities or very low bidding histories. One bidder, with a big 0 for a history, kept bidding it up beyond anyone else, until it climbed over $2,000. Too good to be true, I thought, and this looks like a scam.
So I wrote the bidder, and said I was wise to the usual tricks, that he better pay with a money order from a real bank and it has to be for the exact amount. I won't ship to Indonesia and I'll hold the lens till the check clears, blah blah blah.
The bidder wrote back. He was a buyer for the Princeton Particle Physics Laboratory, and he needed the lens for some exotic physics experiment. His scientists said that only the 58mm f/1.2 Noct-Nikkor would work. Not the 55mm, not the 50mm. Just the 58. His story checked out, the lab was real. He needed my 58mm lens and the US government was willing to pay whatever it took. In fact, he needed SIX of the lenses. He was happy to hear from me, because he was getting hounded by scam artists who were trying to sell lenses that they did not have. He had no eBay identity because of government regulations.
So he bought the lens for about $2,100, which financed my Nikon D80 and a high-end pair of astronomy binoculars. I later saw that he shelled out about $2,600 for some other Noct-Nikkors that did not appear to be as pristine as the lens I sold him.
A fun story, and I got some cool stuff out of it, but to tell you the truth, I do miss that lens. There was something about it that always produced sharp, saturated images." source >>
http://www.kenrockwell.com/nikon/58.htmNikkor - One Thousand and One Nights:
http://www.nikkor.com/story/0016/"From manufacturing to inspection, they spent so much time and effort on this lens."
