matty
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Post by matty on Dec 17, 2013 17:27:56 GMT -5
Funny how areas can affect what is available. I'm in a very rural area, even for Wales, Anglesey about ten miles from the nearest town of any size (Holyhead) and I find that different areas offer different pickings in charity shops. I find very little in the charity shops on the island but have had a fair bit of luck at the local car boot sales (swap meets.) Bangor on the main land, university town quite often has interesting bits and pieces in the charity shops. Rhos on Sea (retirement town) is also a good hunting ground but Colwyn Bay two miles along the coast has very little to offer, Colwyn Bay is quite a deprived area. However, Rhyl which is as even more deprived area has a lot of interesting junk shops and I've found some nice bits there, my last trip netted me an Olympus Trip. The local pawn shops sometimes have a few bits and pieces, we had a trip to Regal Pawn at Queensferry a few weeks back, this has been on the History Channel recently as the UK version of Pawn Stars (I think it is going to be aired in the US in the near future.) I picked up a LOMO BC135, 35mm point and shoot with a clockwork motor winder. The owner had a few other bits and pieces including a FED 1 forged to represent a Luftwaffe Leica; which was interesting but I like my FSU cameras to be unashamedly communist.
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Stan
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Post by Stan on Dec 18, 2013 16:23:25 GMT -5
Although it's difficult to get away with a 10 and a 7 year old on premises, I will occasionally get loose to prowl around a bit. On this side of Dallas, it's mostly pawn shops, but I'll sometimes succumb to my other hobby of computers, and go looking for those parts. Of course, the Dallas area is much more fertile for those types of things!
Two years ago, I went to Hong Kong and did some shopping in the famous electronics/photography shops area off of Nathan Rd., and found it not to my taste. I'm much more attuned to the quite dusty old shops and a slower pace of the out of the way areas like you refer to.
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matty
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Post by matty on Dec 18, 2013 16:58:28 GMT -5
Ah, 10 and 7 years old, I remember it well. Unfortunately, the small human child is now 14 and seriously Goth. Any shopping trips that don't revolve around black nail polish and eyeliner are fraught with teenage moodiness. I shouldn't complain really as she does enjoy photography, shoots with a Fuji Finepix bridge and Nikon D3000, she just can't understand why film cameras are so cool. Matty
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Stan
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Post by Stan on Dec 18, 2013 18:03:57 GMT -5
I have taught and/or coached those moody teenagers for most of my adult life! The 7 year old promises to add dramatics to the teen years as well. It's much easier when they belong to other people and leave your classroom after 50 minutes!
You are luck that you can at least share the photography. I remember during the worst of my own teen years, I could still share that with my father discussing the relative merits of this picture or that produced by his old Voigtlander Bessamatic! The 10 year old appears to be more interested in computers though. Lucky for me, I spend a good part of my vocation in that field.
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lloydy
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Post by lloydy on Dec 18, 2013 19:27:49 GMT -5
I went to one of the charity shops that I check + value cameras for today as they had a big boxful of stuff to sort out. I threw about 12 compacts in the skip - cheap APS and crappy stuff. Also, 3 cheap flash's and an OM motordrive with badly leaking batteries, way beyond sensible repairs. But I did come home with a very nice Chinon CE4-s, 50 / 1.7, 35-100 / 3.5 and motordrive for a very reasonable donation of £10 to the local hospice. They were happy, and so was I.
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Stan
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Post by Stan on Dec 18, 2013 20:37:51 GMT -5
I went to one of the charity shops that I check + value cameras for today as they had a big boxful of stuff to sort out. I threw about 12 compacts in the skip - cheap APS and crappy stuff. Also, 3 cheap flash's and an OM motordrive with badly leaking batteries, way beyond sensible repairs. But I did come home with a very nice Chinon CE4-s, 50 / 1.7, 35-100 / 3.5 and motordrive for a very reasonable donation of £10 to the local hospice. They were happy, and so was I. Very nice find indeed! Those CE4s were quite nice and you'll have access to the huge numbers of K lenses. I really liked that camera for the nice big controls. Much nicer to use than the buttons on the ME-Super!
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lloydy
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Post by lloydy on Dec 19, 2013 5:20:09 GMT -5
Yes, they are very good cameras, I've had a CE 5 for a long time - but no autofocus lenses for it - which I use sometimes. I like my old Pentax's a lot, but the Chinons do give an 'industrial feel' to photography, like the Zenit's you can hammer nails in with them.
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Post by yashica1943 on Mar 29, 2014 5:52:14 GMT -5
In the Uk Zenits are very, very common. I visit a car boot sale every week and the same one comes out on the same table regularly. My neighbour gave me one a few weeks ago, still had a film in it. Not much good to use as I have about 15 other nice manual focus 35mm SLRs. Not worth putting it on ebay. I did find a clean working Sigma Mark One SLR with a poor lens in a charity shop with a good working Vivitar 283 flashgun. I think I paid a bit too much as the Sigma is not quite as rare as I thought it was, but if it doesn't sell it is worth keeping.
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Post by belgiumreporter on Jul 21, 2014 4:51:36 GMT -5
From what i've read in this thread , i can conclude that the second hand camera market seems to be very similar all around the world. Here in Belgium what you can find in charity shops isn't any diffrent from what's described in this thread for the rest of the world. I do sometimes find something at a reasonable price but mostly that reasonable is actually the right price as most of my finds on closer inspection allways need some kind of repair.In the whole of my carreer as a collector (now for more than 30 years) i NEVER came across that 30€ for a box full of old cameras sold by someone who didn't know they were nikons and leicas, the opposite seems to be more common, people with no clue of prices ask way to much for old junk mostly telling a story that it's a real good camera and that it's russian and build like a tank . Not that i want to sound bitter but at at best i've got a good deal on some of my cameras. Maybe i'm collecting the wrong way and am i to eager "to have 'em all" a good example is my collection of canon A series cameras from wich i know i paid way to much because i've bought to soon as now they are worth next to nothing and can be found in abundance . This is where i've come to the point of not chasing cameras anymore or being cought in a bid war on the Evil bay. Now i've let loose, cameras seem to be coming my way... cameras that i was not interested in at first, but who can resist for example a black minolta 7s or a canonet GIII with 1.7 lenses and a polaroid SX70 in good condition for a mere2 Euros? So by lowering my standards of collecting i've found back the joy of finding that little gem that nobody has noticed on the flea market. Maybe one day i'll find that elusive nikon SP between a pile of camera junk for the price of scrap metal (NOT !)
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Post by philbirch on Jul 21, 2014 5:38:36 GMT -5
Keep looking. I think when you are collecting a particular series of camera and want one badly you will pay over the top to get it. I have, then seen a mint one on ebay for less than half what I paid. it's what happens to collectors, whether its guns, cameras or cars.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jul 21, 2014 9:34:01 GMT -5
Pawn shops in our area have absolutely no film cameras. That day is done as far as they are concerned,
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Post by philbirch on Jul 21, 2014 11:18:29 GMT -5
Pawn shops in our area have absolutely no film cameras. That day is done as far as they are concerned, Regular pawn shops that I've been in won't even take digital cameras because they depreciate in value. However we have Cash Generator and Cash Converters (check them out online) they aren't afraid of buying in film cameras and lenses but their pricing is haphazard to say the least. Still, mustn't complain because the good stuff they sell cheap!
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hansz
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Hans
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Post by hansz on Jul 21, 2014 12:19:40 GMT -5
I dont know if they are in Belgium too, but in NL we have the Emmaus Community selling goods to feed the poor and to give shelter to the homeless. They have stores you can find the Venaret, Agfa Click/Clack kind of equipment, but sometimes they carry a Minolta X700, a Canon 620/650 for next to nothing. One day I found some very humble items for 50 cents: a pair of lens back-stops (of how they are called in UKish...). All metal, they were for the Contax RF Biogon/Distagon lenses! Man, that made my day! And I found my Ricoh Singlex TLS / Rikenon 1,4/55 combination.
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Post by philbirch on Jul 21, 2014 15:42:17 GMT -5
In the UK charity shops are everywhere, In the town centre where I am there are: Debra, British Heart Foundation, Salvation Army, 2 animal charities, Help the Aged, Lighthouse, a hospice has 4 shops plus a furniture shop and there are others that I can't remember. With more shops going into malls, British high streets have empty shops. Pawnbrokers, money lenders and charity shops are attracted by cheap rents.
Your back stops will be 'rear lens caps' in English
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hansz
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Hans
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Post by hansz on Jul 21, 2014 16:05:06 GMT -5
Thanks for educating me, Phil. Rear lens caps really sounds much better.
In NL I see a trend that the 'official' thrift shops ('kringloop' - mostly run by the local government) are getting more expensive by the day. They watch Ebay and other auction sites closely and price their goods likewise. No deals anymore! The more charity like shops behave differently, more reasonable? They do attract more business (revenue).
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