Hi guys, aside from updates relating to the container I will post various everyday stories I would like to share as well. I will need to organise categories soon otherwise it will be all over the place so bear with me!
Just a small amount of what was recovered on my dining table
For a few years I was fortunate enough to work in a old photolab tucked away in a small regional town. My job mainly focused on the film and repair services, scanning, printing and upkeep/maintenance of equipment. They have just celebrated their 50th anniversary and I was surprised to find they still had a darkroom in the basement albeit decommissioned. Unfortunately the space had been relegated to storage for quite some time before I came along, it was a grand mess really. Boxes upon boxes and old equipment strewn everywhere - you could hardly walk around in there! With some careful persuasion and permission from the owner I tasked myself to start sorting, organising and cleaning out the entire darkroom.
During lunch breaks I would go down to that musty old basement, grab a box and slowly start sorting through its contents. It stunk of spent fixer and other nasties (I found a silver recovery unit still full of sludge! God knows how long that has been sitting there…) however I persisted. I started to find some really nice film cameras packed away in some of the boxes, perhaps old stock or uncollected repairs? In any case I got excited and turned into a bit of a treasure hunt! I even end up coming in on weekends and days off just to explore down there!
After several months or sorting I had amassed quite the collection of cameras. The bulk of it was mostly point and shoots, old folders (circa 60s) and rangefinders. Lots of Canon Ps, FTbs, petris and voigtlander vitos, himatics, olympus half frames just to name a few, most of them were uncollected repairs from over 20 years ago! There was a host of old elmo slide/8mm projectors/recorders, Polaroid land cameras and an assortment of lenses too some NIB. There were a few hidden gems and respectable point ‘n shoots amongst the lot most notably a 4x5 graflex rb reflex, a WWII recon camera and a BNIB, still sealed Hasselblad 500EL/M Lunar Anniversary Edition!!
Well, I hope you enjoyed this little adventure as much as I did. We end up selling most of the computer related stuff including C64s and various olivetties, DEC machines to a keen collector. The boss and I agreed I would slowly clean, repair and sell the remainder of the cameras in a new used section which I did until I returned to Sydney for studies. We sold quite a few for a small town in the middle of nowhere, a lot of backpackers and younger generations took a keen interest which is always nice to see. There is still quite a backlog of cameras as nobody else was able to continue refurbishing them in my absence so if you are curious about anything you see here drop a line and I may be able to arrange something for you!