stuff you got for nothing and foolishly dumped because you didn't know the value...

[cobalt]

I was given, yes given, an 8x10 dry mounting press along with the tacking iron. Left it at my old apt. because it was too much trouble to find room for.

The same friend who gave me the press later offered me a print dryer, several times, free of charge. Of course, thinking I'd NEVER want to work with fiber based papers, I declined.


Dohh!

[Tony Lakin]

I was given, yes given, an 8x10 dry mounting press along with the tacking iron. Left it at my old apt. because it was too much trouble to find room for.

The same friend who gave me the press later offered me a print dryer, several times, free of charge. Of course, thinking I'd NEVER want to work with fiber based papers, I declined.


Dohh!

If the print drier you were offered was one of those horrible eletric things with a canvas apron you did yourself a favour by refusing it.:D :D :D
Good luck

[Ash]

Tony I've got one of those, I don't use it. :D


I think the main thing was a Canon 50/1,8 in leica threadmount. It was optically perfect. Two years later and I now have the same lens, but it's not perfect, there is one tiny mark inside - still amazing pictures, but I should have kept the original one!

[Michael Graves]

Got an old 3.25x4.25 folder. A Contessa Nettel, I believe it was. While I could still get film, I shot several very nice pictures with it. The alley wall with the pizza house logo on my website was shot with that camera. Then the major manufacturers stopped making that size. I wound up selling it for a few dollars.

Then two things happened. I realized that the 135mm Zeiss Tessar that was making all those wonderful images could have been REMOVED from the camera and I could keep using it. And then I saw that Adox still made that size film. The bruises on my butt from kicking myself will probably never go away.

[jnantz]

6'x3' light table
gave it away ...

silkscreen + printmaking studio
(inks, stretchers, supplies et.C)
gave it away ...

i sold ( not gave away ) maybe 70+/- magic lantern slides
i got for free when i bought a plate camera 20 years ago.
the slides were all of aviation and air mail pioneers
(the book air mail pioneers reprinted many of these images)
while i needed the $$ and sold them to a nice guy,
i loved looking at those images, strange flying contraptions and crashes,
aerial views and portraits of the fathers of aviation.

oh well ... easy come, easy go...

[butterflydream]

ex-wife?

No, seriously, a Russar 20mm lens came with FED.
I kept FED and gave the lens away.

[Maris Rusis]

A perfect Zeiss Super Ikonta I bought for $10 (almost nothing?) in a second hand store. The rangefinder was spot on, the lens was a clean 80/2.8 Tessar and the shutter speeds were fine BUT it only gave me 11 exposures on a 120 roll. So I sold it for $10 thinking any camera that steals one frame per roll from the 12 I deserve can't be worth having.

[John Kasaian]

I buy high and sell low, making up for the difference in volume :D

[Drew Wiley]

I was given a complete 22-foot long process camera from a commercial demolition.
It was in nice shape, but I didn't have anywhere to put it, so I cannibalized the lenses and the vaccuum easel. Everything else went to the dumpster. No choice.

[Jim Galli]

Very early on I got a junk box from ebay. There were probably 40 5X7 and 8X10 holders in various states of dis-array. I forget what else was with that lot or why I bid on it. There must have been something interesting I was after. I remember there was a giant brass lens that looked in horrible shape. I dumped it. Now I know almost anything from that era can be cleaned up and made serviceable. My main curiosity is remembering what was it? No idea now at all. Was it a high dollar piece? Right era, right size and shape. It's the one that got away. Wonder what it was?

[Richard M. Coda]

Ex-wife! Good one, Ernie! LOL

I just picked up 8 practically new Toyo 4x5 holders for $1 ea.! Then he found 3 more, but they cost $10 ea.! So, 11 Toyos for $38, about $3.45 ea.!