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Thread: Collectors out /there?

  1. #1
    Drew Bedo's Avatar
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    Collectors out /there?

    This is pretty much a users site, but many of us use vintage and antique equipment. How many consider themselves to be collectors?

    Even if collecting is a minor part of your life.

    Another topic:

    I was thinking about the vintage items that are sky-high desirables; the Lanthars, Heliers and low S/N Summicrons etc (you pick your own "Holy-Grail", but other stuff also brings collectors interest.

    When I was a teenager in the 1960s, I got a few WW-II era, surplus bayonets through mail-order for <$5 each. Today they are all well over $70 and one of them brings hundreds. Sadly, they have all been gone for decades.

    So what would it be today? What item(s) that are commonly available today will be the high-dollar scarce desirable of our grand children's time? Think more generally than just photography. Will a pristine, in-the-box, NOS example of something sold on TV be "IT"? Think of a Sham-Wow or Snuggie. What about some variety of miracle non-stick cookware, or maybe some specific brand of bed sheets? Will the know-it-alls on some iteration of ?Antiques /roadshow in 2046 think my computer desk is a classic example of user assembled particle board furniture?
    Drew Bedo
    www.quietlightphoto.com
    http://www.artsyhome.com/author/drew-bedo




    There are only three types of mounting flanges; too big, too small and wrong thread!

  2. #2
    bob carnie's Avatar
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    Re: Collectors out /there?

    I do not collect cameras, but I do collect prints and have a pretty decent collection going, which I plan to expand on over the next few years. I know people that collect negatives.

    I photographed a young man's collection of sneakers in pristine shape that was apparently worth over 50k .. I am talking sneakers here.

  3. #3
    Jac@stafford.net's Avatar
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    Re: Collectors out /there?

    I am not a collector, but an accumulator. I am finally learning to let things go and it feels great.

  4. #4

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    Re: Collectors out /there?

    Drew, these days Heliars and Lanthars are penny ante crap. The real money is in fast double Gauss types. Dallmeyer Super Six, a handful of lenses from Taylor Hobson, fast Boyer Saphirs and the like.

    By chance I accumulated some of today's cult lenses, have divested nearly all. For most LF photographers' purposes a modern plasmat beats all of them that cover 4x5 or larger, not to mention 2x3 and smaller.

    Predicting what's cheap now that will appreciate sharply in the next 40 years is a fool's game.

    When my late friend Charlie Barringer (co-author of the Zeiss Ikon Compendium) received his death sentence he discussed selling his collection with Peter Coeln of Westlicht. The word from Vienna was that many of Charlie's treasures, e.g., all those lovely Contaxes with their lovely 50 mm Sonnars, were no longer wanted badly by many people. This isn't to say that none of his treasures were valuable -- his Super-Q Gigantar and Barry Lyndon lens brought really silly money -- but most of them weren't worth all that much.

    If he'd wanted to leave his heirs more money he should have given the money he spent on photographica to Vanguard and let it ride. But then he wouldn't have had the fun of accumulating all that stuff or of using some of it.

  5. #5

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    Re: Collectors out /there?

    Quote Originally Posted by Dan Fromm View Post
    Drew, these days Heliars and Lanthars are penny ante crap. The real money is in fast double Gauss types. Dallmeyer Super Six, a handful of lenses from Taylor Hobson, fast Boyer Saphirs and the like.

    By chance I accumulated some of today's cult lenses, have divested nearly all. For most LF photographers' purposes a modern plasmat beats all of them that cover 4x5 or larger, not to mention 2x3 and smaller.

    Predicting what's cheap now that will appreciate sharply in the next 40 years is a fool's game.

    When my late friend Charlie Barringer (co-author of the Zeiss Ikon Compendium) received his death sentence he discussed selling his collection with Peter Coeln of Westlicht. The word from Vienna was that many of Charlie's treasures, e.g., all those lovely Contaxes with their lovely 50 mm Sonnars, were no longer wanted badly by many people. This isn't to say that none of his treasures were valuable -- his Super-Q Gigantar and Barry Lyndon lens brought really silly money -- but most of them weren't worth all that much.

    If he'd wanted to leave his heirs more money he should have given the money he spent on photographica to Vanguard and let it ride. But then he wouldn't have had the fun of accumulating all that stuff or of using some of it.
    Strange, about 7 years ago I started to acquire some Contax IIa and IIIa, mostly red dial cameras, with lenses from 35 to 180mm. About 5 years ago my wife and I were at a picnic and a camera dealer was also there and I mentioned to him that I had acquired these cameras. Most of which cost me no more then $150.00 each. He said that he had an active market for these and gave me several times what I had paid for them! Of course, the market may have changed somewhat since 2011 when he bought them from me. But I think that there probably is a market out there still that is not obvious to the Zeiss groups.

    I had exactly the same thing happen with a small collection of Exacta VX cameras and lenses a year or two earlier.

  6. #6
    Drew Bedo's Avatar
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    Re: Collectors out /there?

    Of course . . .Pre-collecting IS a fool's game. I was speaking to the historical whimsy of it; what the old (mid 1960S) Rowan and Martin show irreverently called "The Flying fickle Finger of Fate". I myself have a Leica M-3 with single stroke film advance. That used to be desirable. Now the older double stroke gear train brings the interested money. Anyway; how many M-3s were ever made (I know the approximate number is known) . . .a lot. Someday they will glut the collectable market and someone's grandchildren will just junk them.

    My mother-in-law has several sets of china she calls "French Limoges" which she feels should be kept in Fort Knox and only used for weddings and landmark anniversaries. They make for nice heirlooms of course, but not national treasures. Some pieces bring noticeable money on e-Bay, but I suspect that very few actual buyers were born after 1985 or 1990.
    Drew Bedo
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    There are only three types of mounting flanges; too big, too small and wrong thread!

  7. #7
    Jac@stafford.net's Avatar
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    Re: Collectors out /there?

    Quote Originally Posted by Dan Fromm View Post
    [...]By chance I accumulated some of today's cult lenses, have divested nearly all. [...]
    By chance I have one or two collectibles, but while they are rare in their condition, how they render is entirely subject to opinions. What is needed then is a metric regarding opinion$. Everybody has an opinion... you know how the rest of the expression goes.
    .

  8. #8
    Jac@stafford.net's Avatar
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    Re: Collectors out /there?

    Quote Originally Posted by Drew Bedo View Post
    [...] I myself have a Leica M-3 with single stroke film advance. That used to be desirable. Now the older double stroke gear train brings the interested money. [...]
    Which shows that collectors interested in early serial numbers care more for rarity. The double-stroke Leicas went through a few modifications to make them more useful.

  9. #9
    Jim Jones's Avatar
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    Re: Collectors out /there?

    I've rarely discarded cameras when they have been replaced by something better since retiring from a Navy career that precluded accumulating much. I've also replaced a few cameras that I had long ago such as a Mercury II and a Practica FX3. As I near 84, weeding out some of the lesser items seems wise. Maybe someday.

  10. #10

    Re: Collectors out /there?

    I'd admit to being a collector of sorts, but my wife would be quick to point out that I must also add the noun "accumulator," as did the earlier poster.

    I "collect" not based necessarily on what may be worth the most money in the future, but what I haven't yet experienced using. I like to give new life to old things - maybe someone will do the same for me someday!

    Some would ask "how much is enough?" Well, maybe when you have three of everything?? I'm working on it!

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