Cameras You Wish You Still Had

[nikkortorokkor]

Cameras, easy:
Nikon EM (my 1st SLR), Nikon F3 - wonderful, Yashicamat 124G, Mamiya Press Universal - What a beast.

Rifles: 1 & only 1: a common garden 30-30 model 94. A great pig gun.

Motorcycles: I wish I could get rid of the durned things. Bikes to restore:
1912 Clyno 750 V-Twin
Ca1923 Hobart 175cc 2-stroke
1936 Velocette 350 MAC

[aceroadholder]

Michael, if you need parts for the Velo let me know. My son's grandfather has several mid thirties 350's. He's been selling off bikes but keeps the Velo's as he does ride them a bit. He just sold his '37 250 Rudge Whitworth... I would have really liked to have bought it from him but really couldn't afford it... his stuff is all oily rag ridable.. he usually doesn't bother with restorations.
His oldest bike was a 1914 Sears & Roebuck 1000cc Vee Twin. I rebuilt the hand oil pump for the total loss oiling system... he did have to do a lot of work on the machine as it had been in a fire a long time ago which burned up the tinware.

Orlin in South Carolina/USA

[GeneW]

Perhaps my mindset is unusual, but I never miss 'stuff' I've owned. Sometimes I think back on things with affection, but with no sense of loss. I've never regretted selling any camera -- I guess I'm not deeply attached to them. They come and go and I always like the ones I have currently, but when my needs or interests shift, I move on to something else. (I'm not like that with wives though -- we'll be celebrating our 37th anniversary this year)!

Gene

[nikonbob]

Gene

Congratulations on your sensible approach to cameras and on your upcoming 37th anniversary.

Bob

[melek]

The one camera that I always regretted selling was a Leica IIIf with a Summitar. I had bought it several years earlier, and on a whim sold it. However, this has a happy ending, as the friend to whom I sold it then sold it back to me for the same price.

[minoltaman]

Cameras: Minolta X700.

Cars: 1975 Nova, 350, 4bbl, Thrush headers, Craigar rims, B&M shifter, gauges, traction bars, black bucket seats and black interior, pearl white exterior. I had it from '84 to'87 and the girls used to love riding in it!! Have a picture of two of it buried somewhere in my massive piles of stuff in the closet.

[Deleted]

Stephen: You are a very lucky man!

Wayne

[PeterW]

Stephen,

Congratulations. £2 for a black LTL with Pancolor. £5 for Rollei T ... You're talking my sort of prices here! I think I too would have snapped them up even though they're outside my new, self-imposed, collecting era.

I went to the Ashford boot fair last Sunday as Wendy had a stall to get rid of a lot of stuff she's been turning out. I did a quick - well, quickish - tour round the stalls but as usual there was nothing of interest to me. I don't go there every week, and I don't, unfortunately, get out and about to other fairs as I used to, but never mind, I've still got quite a few cameras to restore before I need to go looking for more.

Oh, John says thanks for the loan of the discs. I think he had to fit a new hard drive (new-used) in one of the iMacs, but they're both up and running now. I tried one out the other day, and though they're still nice machines to use they make you realise how far technology has developed in the relatively short time since they were introduced.

My eldest grandson Arron is angling for a much later Mac (some sort of convoluted deal involving an Escort and a Fiesta which I don't pretend to follow). He likes the Mac OS because he does a lot with graphics: way-out futuristic posters and banners full of improbable mythological warrior figures, bolts of lightning etc., and says the Mac handling of graphics is superior to a PC. He runs his computer into a 30-inch flat-screen TV, about 4 inches thick front to back, in place of a monitor - don't ask me how. The colour, close-up definition and completely flat field is quite amazing.

PeterW

[olroy2044]

Just read thru this entire thread again--lots of fun. Listed the guns I wish I still had the first time thru. There's only one camera I wish I still had (like Randy, I still have almost all of 'em, except for some that were stolen ) My sister gave me a Kodak (?) folder when I was about 12, and that's the one I wish I still had. 120 or 620 film. Used it at the Seattle World's Fair, and my fate was sealed! Don't even know what happened to it!

Cars? My highly modified and e-x-t-r-e-m-e-l-y fast '59 Studebaker Lark! Roy

[mickeyobe]

This is not exactly about cameras or boot sales.

However......

My eMac at 5 years old is, like its owner, showing its age and I am hunting for an iMac. The advancements in the past 5 years are amazing. Among their other refinements Macs are now compatible with PC's.

I have decided to wait until after the back-to-school shopping frenzy has exhausted itself and, hopefully, prices will drop a little.

I tried the Apple store in Toronto. It is the noisiest most unpleasant, mind numbing retail store I have ever encountered. The clerk, when asked why the music is played so loudly told me "The vibes make 'the people' happy". So I conclude I am not one of 'the people'.

Ah yes. The clerks. They are bright, cheerful young creatures confident that they know all there is to know about everything to do with computers. Sadly, the proof of the pudding is, indeed, in the eating and it turns out to be rather unappetizingly saccharine.

I will, ultimately, purchase the iMac from an Apple "reseller" - a pleasant, sedate older fellow who will "get" the correct answers to my questions.

Mickey

[Randy]

My greatest regret: In late 1969, while driving by Dahl Motors in Erie PA, I spotted a 1969 1/2 A-12 Code 440 Six Barrel Ivy Green Plymouth Road Runner sitting on the show room floor. I drove by that car every day, and it was there for several months. I guess people were scared of the big 440 cubic inch V8 and the combination of the three 2 barrel carbs and four speed tranny. I finally broke down and went in to see it in person. After about 15 minutes I wrote a check for $3960.00 and drove it home. I owned that car for over 12 years, and when I got rid of it, it was in showroom condition. It was a victim of divorce. The car in today's standards is very rare, and I wish I had never sold it, not because of the collectability, but because it was an old and cherished friend, and after almost 30 years I still miss it.

[Deleted]

I missed a deal the other day. Checked the local on line classifieds and several days earlier a guy had listed a "mint" Nikon D50 DSLR with two telephoto zooms for $400. I could have sold the lenses--which would have paid for the body which I would have kept as a backup. I called the guy and he said he hadn't had any takers for a week so he had just that day given the camera and lenses to his son.

[drako]

Kodak Pony with 44mm f/3.5 Anastar lens. Range focusing meant nothing to the fact of eye-poppingly sharp and contrasty Kodachromes.

[camerastoomany]

My thinking is a bit like Stephen's. I buy something because I want it. Why on earth would I then dispose of it? However, like Gene, once something leaves me I do not miss it. Not that I have consciously disposed of a camera.

To clarify, in 1995 an arsonist was responsible for the loss of most of the camera collection I had at the time (something in excess of 80 cameras). Once I was over the anger, well, it all became forgotten history.

Reading this thread set me to thinking that there is a camera I regret losing in that fire. I had a Retina IIc with a full (I think) selection of lenses and as far as I know, every accessory Kodak made for it. A joy to use. I currently have a Retina IIa: well, it might be similar but it just ain't the IIc.

I had a Ruger 10/22 semi-auto which hit everything it looked at. I didn't dispose of it, the government took it away. It was the big (post shooting massacre) gun buy-back and my .22 was a semi-auto and therefore more dangerous than my Marlin lever-action .357 mag, my friend's Winchester .45/70 l/a and my neighbour's .30/30. If I had to be hit with one of them, I know which I'd choose.

Being a poor person, one motorcycle at a time is my limit and I wouldn't be without my Moto Guzzi Nevada. During October it will carry me along 5000 kilometres of country roads and highways when a bunch of us go touring.

[cyclops]

Well my first SLR was a Zenith TTL that my brother gave me when I was a kid. I loved that camera as it was a real camera to me back then. It had a meter and you could change the lenses,oh and it was Russian! I do have another TTL that someone on a photography site gave me but it is unreliable as the shutter tends to stick after exposure, fogging the film. Shame really cos I love old mechanical cameras!