Veteran Member Join Date: Jan 2011 Location: Houston, Texas |
ctrout, I commend you for your willingness to help out friends in need and your honesty in insisting on paying fair market value for those items you chose to acquire from their collections. But honestly, 15 cameras is not too many!
Since returning to film photography in a significant way back in 2009 (I never really left, but it had become a sort of twice yearly ritual of taking film snapshots at Thanksgiving and Christmas and maybe the odd birthday), I have put together a rather extensive collection of film gear, which, at last count, includes over 50 cameras and perhaps 60 or 70 lenses. This may seem like a lot, but I know people whose collections absolutely dwarf mine. So, when is too much too much? I guess whenever you say it is, otherwise, it is what it is. But to me, 15 cameras isn't too much -- it's getting started is what it is.
My collection has grown to the size it is because when I started reacquiring gear, I began by buying items that I liked. Items I had previously owned and was still fond of, or items that I'd never owned, but had always been curious about. So my collection ended up being diverse. I started out in 35mm photography with a Canon AE-1 and had built up a nice Canon FD outfit when I decided to sell it all and switch over to Nikon several years later. I began shooting with Nikon back in about 1989 and continue to be a Nikon shooter to the present. But I always have had a soft spot for Canon FD cameras and lenses, so when I began to reacquire gear, I bought a lot of Canon stuff. The good stuff, like the FTb, the F-1s (both old and new), and the T90. I also bought more Nikon too, since, by 2009, my surviving Nikon kit was rather sparse. It consisted of a single F2 and maybe a half-dozen Nikkor lenses. I also had a soft spot for the Pentax KX because I had used one on a vacation trip to Colorado one winter -- back in about 1990, I guess it was. I had always liked its suite of features -- mostly its depth of field preview, mirror lock up and match needle metering. It was, to me, Pentax's version of the Canon FTb -- a camera that I've always had another soft spot for. So I also began to accumulate Pentax. I now own seven Pentax 35mm SLRs, which includes, not only a nice KX, but an MX and LX as well. Plus I own a Pentax 67, a Brobdingnagian machine if there ever was one, and a camera I've wanted ever since seeing one being used freehand with that big wooden grip by a hearty fellow at an airshow back in the early 80s. I love that camera!
I also wonder what will become of my collection if I were to suddenly not be here one day. I've already had a discussion about this with my daughter -- I even went to the trouble of making a list of all my gear and what fair market prices were for each item, so she would have some idea of what to ask. Otherwise, she would have no clue. And that goes, especially, for my wife, who would be much more likely just to dump the entire collection just to be rid of it. But I think my daughter would be more inclined to try and sell it for what it's worth. Which, let's face it, even for a sizable collection like mine, is not worth nearly as much as it was some 20 or 25 years ago.
I too would happily give my gear away to people I know who would shoot with it, but I don't know anybody like that. Everyone in my extended family has gone digital. I don't think any one of them has used a film camera in years. And even back during the heyday of film, all of my family were P&S users. I am the only one who took up photography as a serious hobby -- and avocation, even. So, I guess it will be the auction block -- or perhaps the buy-it-now block -- for my gear when that day comes. Unless I had enough notice, the way ctrout's friend has, in which case, I'd try to do whatever I could to see that my stuff achieved fair market value.
Last edited by cooltouch; 03-26-2017 at 02:51 AM.
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