Couldn't find it!

[PeterW]

Randy,
I tried to link to your thread 'Snakin Around' to comment on your lizard-skin GAF but couldn't access it. When I tried I got a message 'Error. The thread you are trying to access does not exist' .

PeterW

[Randy]

I deleted a post I thought, and I got the wrong button.

Here it is. lol

This is from the same snake I used on my Pentax K-100.

[PeterW]

Ah, great. Got it now, Randy

The comment I wanted to make was to say that both GAFs look absolutely like new, as do all the other cameras you've recovered. I was wondering if you'd stripped and painted the top plate or if, like some of the others, you'd managed to find new top plates for them.

Very few of these 'own brand' variants of Cosinas, and others turn up in the UK. They seem to be strictly a US marketing, though quite a few of the older Arguses and Univexes turn up from time to time.

I haven't got a Univex. I've sometimes fancied a Univex Mercury which looks a busy sort of camera with all the knobs on the front, and that big dome at the back that covers the rotary shutter, but I haven't seen one at the right price yet (and by right price I mean cheap as dirt!).

I've got two of the older pre-war Arguses. Despite my love of German mechanical ingenuity in cameras I like the rugged simplicty inside the Argus A. It's one of the early ones witrh a single film sprocket inside. Nothing to go wrong really. Unfortunately on mine the lens is crap, but at the price RCA used to buy the lenses I suppose there had to be a few duds and I got one of them. I've had better results from a cheap cornflake-packet 110.

My other Argus is an early post-war model 21 Markfinder. I got it for £1 ($1.80) in a junk box at a camera fair because it had a big ding in the top plate. I got rid of the ding, but the plating is very badly marked. I was toying with the idea of refinishing the top plate in one of the chrome-type aerosol sprays you can get from an auto accessory shop but never got around to it. It's got the standard f/3.5 Cintar lens and takes quite reasonable pictures but I've only ever used it once in ten years.

I used to have a C3 'brick' but two or three years ago I lent it to someone who then moved and that was the last I saw of it.

PeterW

[Randy]

I was lucky with these Peter. Most of the Chinons and derivitives had problems with leatherette shrinkage like the Konicas did. As would be the case, most people just put the cameras away because of the unsightly peeling leatherette. I felt like a thief paying what I did for those two GAFs. I especially like the triangles besides the prism. It makes for more area to put hides or skins on. Some of my cameras have been painted with Testors Black Chrome enamel. You can use Alclad Chrome for chrome cameras, it's a two part system using a high gloss black enamel undercoat and a chrome finish. I have one camera that is brass under the black paint, and I intend to strip the black using aircraft paint spray, then polish the brass before I spray it with clear laquer.