The "Worst" Photo related deal you ever made...

[SAShruby]

So I may as wel start another round of the deals, the worst deals.

Mine was an Ebay purchase of Tri Color Meter for $140 dollars to find out that it's not working, I replaced the battery for $65!!! dollars, then I sent it to manufacturer to find out they couldn't fix it and charged me another $200 for trying.

Ended up in a garbage.

[IanMazursky]

An 8x10 Korona that i bought of of ebay for $275. Looked great in the pictures the owner said it was in very good condition.
It just needed some cleaning and some minor wood repair. Ha! By minor he meant some dry rot.
Said the bellows were light tight, my a$$! The hardware is loose and the gears sound stripped.
The camera wasn't worth the shipping price. Its still in my front hall waiting for me to do something with it.
Ive been thinking of tuning it into a wet plate camera since its already a junker.

Another one is when i bought a lot of Ilford paper from a local media converter.
It was from the ilford shutdown a few years back. They looked good and the price was ok.
I developed a few and id say half of what i bought was fogged. I think they shipped it over in an hot container instead of a refrigerated one.
Just another thing to add to the storage room.

[Frank Petronio]

I bought a DeGolden Busch 8x10 for $200 in good condition. And it was. It was still the worst camera design in the world, it was truly bizarre, all nautical brass and oak.

On eBay I bought an excellent Graflex Super D except to find out the shutter was broken. But it looked excellent.

And a Photoflex Changing Room that turned out to be all mildewed... but the seller said it usable. It was, if you could stand it.

[David Karp]

I bought a brand new lens once, my very first LF lens. Only once.

[tbeaman]

I'd have to think about this. Off the top of my head, I think I have had more cases of simple buyer's remorse, than, "ouch, that was a bad deal!" Mainly it would be down to things I spent a little too much for, things I bought that I didn't need, or the worst, a combination of both.

So far, my record's been pretty good, but I think I've been slipping a bit lately. It's gotten a little harder to justify the GAS.

[Roger Thoms]

Two whole plate film holders billed as rough but serviceable for $165. Didn't check them out until some time after the purchase, turned out that they leak light like a sieve. Ouch!

Roger

[Brian Ellis]

The Agfa Ansco 5x7 camera I bought from The F Stops Here, a LF specialty store that I don't think is still in business. I paid a premium price for what was supposed to be a premium camera. However, the seller neglected to mention that a former owner began painting it black and quit half way through, so it was part gray and part sloppy black. The painter also didn't bother to remove or even paint around the metal pieces, he just painted right over them. I'm sure others have made worse deals, at least the camera worked, but it was disappointing to get such an ugly camera after paying top dollar. Particularly when the crappy black paint job couldn't have been more obvious, so that the seller's failure to mention it was clearly intentional.

My other deal with the same seller around the same time was also a bad one - a lens on which the shutter stuck open at slow speeds. When I called the seller I got Chuck Farmer on the phone, who was working there at the time. He was very nonchalant about it, no apology for not even bothering to check the shutter before they sold it, no excuses, just acted like it was completely normal to sell a lens with a non-functioning shutter. It took some months but I eventually got a refund after several emails and phone calls. That was the last time I dealt with The F Stops Here.

[erie patsellis]

Loaning a (ex)friend my brand new 4x5 camera and lenses, along with my 8x10 B&J and several lenses, tripods, holders, the whole 9 yards for a "project" he had started.

That was 11 years ago, wanna guess how much of my equipment I ever got back???
(it took me several years to recover financially enough to be able to start repurchasing what I had "loaned out")

[Ash]

Around £150 for a Russian made 21mm viewfinder, to replace the squinty OEM one on the Hasselblad SWC. Turns out not only was I stung bad, but I can't look through it cos my cheekbone hits on the A12 back...

[Ash]

Erie, sounds like the 'friend' who asked me to move in to his spare 'double' room at £450 a month... one night, no bed, only space for a tiny single, and £1000 later I was back home, minus all the belongings I'd taken up with me

[LyleB]

Similar to Ash and Erie.

Got transferred from a land based job to a Schooner based job. At the time I was sharing an apartment with some co-workers. To make a long story short, I left some belongings in the apartment for the six months I was on the boat, my Nikon SLR and lenses being among the items left. Big mistake on a number of levels.

While I was away, my roommates "loaned out" my camera and favorite lens to a friend of theirs to do a work project for Coca Cola, his employer. Not only did I never see my camera again, despite multiple attempts, I found out they forged my name and absconded with my share of the Security Deposit on the apartment.

It's amazing what people will do to their "friends". Never understood that. Still, I try not to be cynical, and continue to trust most folks until proven wrong.

[Michael Jones]

Like Brian, my worst case revolves around The f Stops Here. I cosigned a lens for sale and did not hear from them for several months despite telephone calls. I had a business trip to the area, so I stopped in the check the sale status. Turns out the lens was not in; they were renting it out! I requested it be returned when it came back. They returned it with a nice scratch on the front element and a broken shutter. In fairness, after some persuasive conversations, they did compensate me. But, I never bought from them again.

Mike

[bob carnie]

I gave away a 5x7 mint condition Durst condensor enlarger with everything to an artist run co-op , hoping they would use it, They never did and even worse they threw out the system without letting me know.
I would like to have this enlarger now.

[Robbie Shymanski]

I got a Leica D-Lux-4 for Christmas last year. I don't care what folks say, it is not worthy of its red logo in any shape of the word.

[evan clarke]

It's starting to be a wide lens for my 11x14. I normally use rise just because the stuff around here needs it (thing which are tall and must be straight). I have a 360 f6.5 with a 494mm image circle and a 300 Rodenstock macro which claims to have a 550mm circle and still get some top corner vignetting at any aperture. I have 2 450s and both are fine but I'm a couple thousand into this wide thing without results!!

[Hans Berkhout]

A photo critique by Cheryl Nicolai aka Cheryl Jacobs aka Cheryl Jacobs Nicolai.
After shooting landscapes for many years I wanted some feedback on my recent potraiture. So I shipped her 19 fiber 11x14 prints (archivally processed) for review and feedback by telephone. I mailed her fee to which I added USD 25 for postage, I explained this (postage money) in an email. The critique was helpful, but-and this is the bad deal part- I never saw my prints again. I have no doulbles, had only one set. Multitude of emails and some phonecalls from my end-no satistactory response; one email, in which Cheryl asks me to send her proof that I wanted my prints returned: I re-sent her (about 8 times) the email re USD 25 for postage- no answer.
I'll refrain from further comment.

[Michael Graves]

The shared lease on a prime studio location in a chic downtown New England building with a "well-know" videographer. A thousand down for the deposit and I moved right in. Three days later, he "sold" the lease at three times the rate and told me to move out. Never did get the deposit back.

[Vaughn]

deleted what I just wrote -- trying to put that deal behind me