It was good for about 60 years until the Tessar was introduced. That was >100 years ago.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tessar_Lens
N.B. I am not against old things per se as I am quite an antique myself, and, last time I used film, it was processed in Rodinal, a developer about as old as the Petzval design. I can’t understand how this design was, in any way, “ahead of its time.” It seems to have been right on its time.
It was dreamed up, kisckstarted, designed and produced by a company which has described its products as toys.
I would like to play with this lens, but I would not use it regularly for a subject or event that was important to me.
Started out doing photography at the age of 6 using an uncle's old 1940 kodak brownie box camera. At 15 years of age, I decided to buy my very own 1975 Praktica SLR camera. I now shoot with a Nikon D850. I do unpaid TFP and commercial paid work.