Hi Steve,

After mentioning a cheap apochromat I looked up my reference: Book two of Amateur 
Telescope Making, page 417, published by Scientific American 1959. The article 
starting on page 417 is entitled The Camera Obscura and on page 422,
the author (Horace E. Dall) writes:

"I have only 4-1/4" aperture, but remember that I have aimed at getting as near 
to optical perfection as I can achieve. I chose a pair of Chance Bros. melts - 
a hard crown and a special telescope flint, the crown having a ud of 1.515 and 
the telescope flint only 1.530 (approx.), which enabled me to get what is, for me, 
an unheard of coincidence of focus for four colors of the visible spectrum, 
viz., h, F, D, and C. The quaternary spectrum left over is less than a tenth of 
the usual secondary of a normal flint and crown doublet, and to ordinary 
observation, astronomical or terrestrial, false color is non-existent."

Years later I read in a photography magazine under New Developments that 
objectives had been invented that seemed similar to that made by Mr. Dall.  
I wrote Scientific American and they wrote back that Mr. Dall was in his 90's and 
would be pleased to know about it, but I don't know if anyone ever contacted him.

The article also had a picture taken by Mr. Dall with his lens and it shows a 6" 
church drainpipe (better seen in the original) at 17 miles distance.

I kept the letter but seem to have hidden it from myself and hope that my memory 
hasn't played any tricks.  Seems to me that he was decades ahead of the rest 
of the crowd.

- Frank Wilson

PS:  I don't have permission for the above quote from the book and hope I'm not 
violating any laws.

(I'm sure the judge will take that into consideration Frank - SN)