A Sony lens for $43

I may be telling this story against myself given my enthusiasm for Leicas and Leica lenses in particular but this photo was taken with a lens which I bought for A$43 on eBay. It was A$60 with the postage from an Australian seller in Brisbane.
The lens is a classic Minolta F1.7 50mm MD mount which I fitted onto a Sony a7 with an adapter I also bought on eBay and which cost A$11.47 with free postage from Hong Kong. Despite its price the adapter is very well made - how do they do it?
The lens did not come with caps and to protect it I bought a 49mm Hoya UV filter off eBay from another Australian seller for A$14.50 again with free postage.So my total outlay for the lens,adapter and filter was A$86 say US$64.
The lens is in excellent condition.Optically it is mint and the focus ring turns like oiled silk.Minolta were once a very well regarded camera and lens manufacturer. Indeed they had an association with Leica at one stage. They were bought by Sony in 2006.
The above photo of Phoebe,my beautiful old Himalayan,was taken at F1.7-the colour is great and the lens is tack sharp - see the enlarged section below.

 Below are a couple more shots I took with it a few weeks ago. It performs very well and also it it feels good on the camera.The pattern on the focus ring on the lens reminds me of an Olympus Zuiko lens.The adapter is quite short so that the lens/camera combination is compact.The problem with using some heritage lenses on the a7 with adapters is that the adapters are long so you end up having a slim camera body dominated by a great big lens.
If I had been asked to do a blind test of this lens and had been told it was a new $1000 Zeiss lens for the Sony I would have said that it is a very good lens.For A$86 it is a quite extraordinary lens.If you own a Sony a7 and are looking for a wide aperture 50mm lens find yourself one of these. And if you own a Sony NEX this lens becomes a F1.7 90mm equivalent which really is a useful piece of kit.Sure you have to focus and set the aperture manually but that is not a big deal particularly as the Sony's manual focus peaking works so well.And remember many of those high priced current Zeiss lenses for the Sony mount are manual focus and aperture control.