Too Much Gear!

[sanking]

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Vintage-Camera-Collection-500-pieces-of-equipment-cameras-body-lens-etc-/261243699034?pt=Film_Cameras&hash=item3cd3567f5a

Looks like somebody finally got more equipment than they could use!!

Sandy

[polyglot]

Isn't that (part of) the massive lot that sold a few months ago? Around $40-60k as I recall. Anyway, $40 per 'item' seems pretty optimistic given what they've pictured.

[Otto Seaman]

But 500 times $3 is only $1500....

[Leszek Vogt]

Gees, is/was that a collector ? The photo of all that is worth some cash.

Les

[photoevangelist]

This made me laugh! Thanks for sharing!

[Jody_S]

If someone took an 8x10 of all that, and enlarged it so that all the gear was life-size, would the resulting print be worth more than the cameras he's selling?

[Cletus]

Dang, and it's not like the cameras all old Leicas and Contax either. Looks like a big-a** lot of flea market and antique store finds to me. Accumulated over how many years I wonder.....

[MIke Sherck]

A few years ago my wife and I attended an estate auction described as containing "cameras". The deceased had more than this guy but it was pretty much the same stuff as in this ebay auction. His son said that his dad couldn't pass up a camera or related item at a yard sale or auction and it showed. I've never seen more Kodak Brownies in one place in my entire life and he had cardboard box after cardboard box of smelly old folders. Just auctioning the cameras took hours and that was with not very great attendance -- they didn't advertise it very well. I was buying items that either I wanted (my Rolleiflex New Standard, for example) or stuff I thought I could peddle I learned that my wife was buying entire tables full of boxes of stuff that no one else wanted for $1 or so a table-full. (One of those boxes contained a small box with an absolutely lovely Cooke lens in it.) We filled her car to the brim with stuff and boxes of stuff. What a haul! One of the best days we ever had! We ended up tripling what we spent after all was said and done, and I still have and use (and love!) the Rollei. I did miss out on an 8x10 B&J monorail, though, in a case with two or three wooden film holders and some old lenses of moderate repute (Carl Meyer, etc.) It was one of the last items auctioned because it was sitting in the grass off to one side and I had almost bought it for $60 when some guy runs up and bids. I got him up to $500 out of pure spite and then stopped bidding. He comes up to me afterward and asks what it is he's just bought and whether they still make film for it! I still wonder in amazement how people can just do silly things like that, and how the conversation went between him and his wife when they looked it up and discovered that they had paid $500 for maybe $300 worth of stuff (prices at the time. I had just bought my own B&J monorail, so I knew what they brought.)

Mie

[Cletus]

That's funny. :) The guy has a lot of nerve coming up to you after having outbid you and then ask you what it is he just fought so hard to beat you out of!

I hope you told him it was just a bunch of junk and you just wanted to see how much you could get him to pay for it!

[redshift]

I've seen several auctions on ebay with outrageous starting prices, tens of thousands and even a million for nearly worthless items. Are these just crazy people? Scams? Why go through the effort of listing something that won't sell? Are they hoping to find that one fool?

[goamules]

This junk camera auction was talked about on some other forums too. It's the common fallacy of amateur collectors who become sellers - That to sell the entire lot, they need to make the maximum on each and every item. So they calculate $20 for each and every box Brownie (that usually go unsold for $9), mini tripod, unusable flash, etc. When they are done calculating - HOLY MOLY - I need to get $29,000 for all my collection! Of course, it never sells, they become bitter, die, and the wife pitches everything in the trash!

Sellers of barely wanted stuff need to realize that if their goal is a fast and easy sale, without all the "trouble of putting it individually on ebay" they need to price the lot about 1/3 of what the individual items added up would be. Or 1/5.... No one is going to make their job easy and pay top dollar for a bunch of junk that will then go unsold....to get a few gems. You pay BOTTOM dollar to do that.

[Michael Graves]

Ya gotta love this one....http://www.ebay.com/itm/Lot-Vintage-DuPont-Defender-Kodak-Ansco-4-12-x-2-34-BW-Photo-Paper-/111122607888

From the description:

"All these sets are past their expiration dates. However the boxes have been opened but when opened the sheets wrapped look just about full. We are selling these as is since we don't know the condition. We will ship all these as soon as the payment has been made.

Brandon"

Guess we have to trust the wrap? Or did he peek inside there too?

[Drew Bedo]

Someone in the 1980s had an ad that said, "Too much is never enough!"

Was it MTV?

[Ari]

Someone in the 1980s had an ad that said, "Too much is never enough!"

Was it MTV?

Yes, it was Billy Idol who did that MTV spot.