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Thread: Biggest "steal" you ever made...

  1. #131

    Join Date
    Aug 2007
    Location
    Indianapolis, Ind.
    Posts
    589

    Re: Biggest "steal" you ever made...

    Steals on darkroom equipment are so common that they should not even count. I Keep fending off a friend's offer of a complete medium format color darkroom for a song.

    However, I did want to upgrade my Omega DII to a D2. (I wanted the elevation crank.) I hoped to find one for $85 or less. I eventually found a D2V auctioned locally on www.govdeals.com and got it for $17.85. Included was a decent Magnasight enlarging magnifier, two (crappy) Beseler enlarging timers, a contact printing frame, a 150mm Componon-S enlarging lens, a film drying cabinet, a Mohr automatic film processor, and an Omega D5XL with three more Componon-S lenses.

    Anybody driving distance from Indy want a D5XL? Anybody have any ideas what to do with a Mohr processor?

  2. #132

    Join Date
    Dec 2001
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    San Joaquin Valley, California
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    9,599

    Re: Biggest "steal" you ever made...

    Quote Originally Posted by Dan Fromm View Post
    You paid $60 for a 240 G-Claron? That's a lot, John, way over market.

    I once bought two 240/9 dagor type G-Clarons in our local flea market for $20. That's $20 for the pair, not for each.
    Don't rub it in, Dan!
    "I would feel more optimistic about a bright future for man if he spent less time proving that he can outwit Nature and more time tasting her sweetness and respecting her seniority"---EB White

  3. #133

    Join Date
    Sep 1998
    Location
    Loganville , GA
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    14,409

    Re: Biggest "steal" you ever made...

    Two particularly good deals:

    1: call on a camera store and a young guy in a tux with a stretch limo outside the store is with his mother in the store. And the mother is berating him for spending his prom money on a camera that had no take-up spool. And a new take-up spool would have cost more then the camera system and was a special order item that had to come from Switzerland. The mother was asking the boy what he would do because now he didn't have the money for his date that night.

    I offered to buy the cameras system, as is, for what he paid for it at the garage sale. He wanted $20.00 more. So I agreed to pay him $50.00 cash, on the spot, and he handed over a Robot Royal camera with 3 Schneider lenses in magnificent condition.

    I called another dealer and asked if he wanted it for his collection and he agreed to pay $2000.00 for it!

    2: New Years eve get a call from a friend that a friend of his had died and the widow wanted to sell some of his equipment. The equipment consisted of a Linhof Technika IV in a fitted case with 7 lenses, Super Rollex backs, grip, MultiFocus finder, filters, hoods, etc. plus a Rollei SL66 150mm lens and prism + a Leitz microscope + + some assorted macro lenses. Agreed to sell the equipment for 10% of whatever I could get for it + I would get the microscope and the Rollei lens and Prism. The family wanted $4,000.00 for it all. Called a dealer in Philadelphia who agreed to buy it. He purchased it for $5,000.00, I was paid $500.00 + the lens and prism and the Leitz microscope and the family gave me the $1000.00 over the wanted selling price of $4000.00! Entire transaction took place on New Years eve in 4 hours!

  4. #134

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    Dec 2001
    Location
    NJ
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    8,470

    Re: Biggest "steal" you ever made...

    Quote Originally Posted by John Kasaian View Post
    Don't rub it in, Dan!
    John, it gets worse. Roughly a month after I'd sold those two 240s I bought another one, also dagor type, via eBay.co.uk for $50 delivered. So yours is more or less on trend.

    You're right, those days are gone. Real bargains are much rarer now.

  5. #135

    Join Date
    Sep 1998
    Location
    Loganville , GA
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    14,409

    Re: Biggest "steal" you ever made...

    Forgot about the 3rd.

    Was in a small camera store in Kansas with a very large display of used cameras. On the shelf was a 3 lens Rollei 35mm SLR outfit marked "SL35" in very good condition with 3 Zeiss lenses, 35mm 1.4, 50mm 1.4 and 85mm 1.4. Asked the dealer how much he had to get for the package. He said that he wanted my attachee case.

    Asked him for a plastic bag and emptied my case into the bag and received the camera system.

    That weekend was a Second Sunday Camera Show and took the body and the lenses to the show. A dealer saw the camera while I was waiting in line and paid $1,600.00 for the body only. It was a Rollie SL350 which was never exported to the USA. Only about 1000 pieces were ever made of this model.

    Lenses kept to use on a Rollei SL3000 system that was later stole in France.

  6. #136

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    Dec 2001
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    San Joaquin Valley, California
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    Re: Biggest "steal" you ever made...

    Quote Originally Posted by Dan Fromm View Post
    John, it gets worse. Roughly a month after I'd sold those two 240s I bought another one, also dagor type, via eBay.co.uk for $50 delivered. So yours is more or less on trend.

    You're right, those days are gone. Real bargains are much rarer now.
    I tend to buy "high" and sell "low" but I make up for it in volume!
    "I would feel more optimistic about a bright future for man if he spent less time proving that he can outwit Nature and more time tasting her sweetness and respecting her seniority"---EB White

  7. #137

    Join Date
    Feb 2004
    Location
    Arnprior, Ontario, Canada
    Posts
    328

    Re: Biggest "steal" you ever made...

    8 3/4 inch Verito on an old beat up Graflex 4X5 SLR RB from ebay - no description of lens but the picture was just clear enough to see that it looked like a Verito. Gambled $35 + $25 shipping for a very good condition Verito - also in the box was an 8 inch Cooke anastigmat also in very good shape.

  8. #138
    Confidently Agnostic!
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    Aug 2006
    Location
    Victoria BC
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    1,062

    Re: Biggest "steal" you ever made...

    Heh, too many to mention. I guess when you're obsessive about this stuff you find the deals.
    Walter Ash
    Vancouver / Victoria BC
    http://ashphotography.ca

  9. #139

    Join Date
    Sep 2008
    Location
    Carmel Valley, CA
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    1,048

    Re: Biggest "steal" you ever made...

    Found an unusual Meridian 45CE on eBay a year and a half ago, it had an improved cam-lever swing adjustment front standard and other refinements over my Meridian 45B. Scored it in a sniping war where it bid up to the top end for a 45B.

    My new camera arrived pristine, came with a brochure for the new improved Model 45C. Turned out to be a prototype that was scheduled to be produced never went into production before the Meridian Instrument Co folded in 1950. Sometime later found an engineer's son who'd worked there as a teen himself, and has the only other known surviving Meridian 45C, also a prototype (a bit different than mine) passed to him from his father.

    Took it to Billings, Montana for the Antiques Road Show this past Summer. Confirmed that I'd done pretty well to score it for what I did, then went on to use it as my go-to camera all summer long in Glacier NP this past summer.

  10. #140

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    Dec 2001
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    San Joaquin Valley, California
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    Re: Biggest "steal" you ever made...

    I just remembered a Meopta enlarger I nabbed for $8, lens and all! It was the model built for 127 film format (I'm into Brownie cameras---yes, I know I should be ashamed of myself! ) and since it was cheaper than any 127 film holder I could find for my MF enlarger I figured it was quite a deal. When it arrived, it came with film holders for not ony 127, but 135 and 120! I suppose I should part with my MF enlarger now (and I've been "supposing" this for nearly the past seven years! )
    "I would feel more optimistic about a bright future for man if he spent less time proving that he can outwit Nature and more time tasting her sweetness and respecting her seniority"---EB White

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