Camera Heritage Museum in Staunton, VA.

This Museum might have been posted here before, but today I took a trip over to Staunton and met David Schwartz, Jim Palmer and Jeremy Nance.

Amazing collection and well worth the price of admission to view their collection of historically important cameras. The Museum is bursting at the seams with about every camera you can think of and a very knowledgeable staff.

They are an actual non-profit organization and are trying to raise the funds to move to another larger building, which they desperately need.

It is well worth the effort to drop in and tour the building if you are in the neighborhood. Every inch is packed with cameras from every era, so you can spend several hours just drooling over the displays.

Had a lot of fun there and it's great to talk cameras without people running away from you! Drop by and give them whatever donation you can afford. They really need it!

1800 items listed by these guys on ebay

mshchem said:

Security Measure | eBay

www.ebay.com

1800 items listed by these guys on ebay

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Yes, they explained as a 401c non-profit, part of the donation policy is that if you donate a camera they have well represented, they can sell it to fund their operations going forward. You can imagine the overlap such a place gets in equipment donations.

Having worked at an archive (which could NOT sell donated materials), I can understand this policy.

So I should start a darkroom museum

mshchem said:

So I should start a darkroom museum

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They don't deal in darkroom, so you would corner the market!

At least, not concentrated; they have a very few examples; as well as practically no cinema gear.

Kino said:

Yes, they explained as a 401c non-profit, part of the donation policy is that if you donate a camera they have well represented, they can sell it to fund their operations going forward. You can imagine the overlap such a place gets in equipment donations.

Having worked at an archive (which could NOT sell donated materials), I can understand this policy.

Click to expand...

Sounds like the fellow in the video started collecting in the 60's

All the different colors of same Kodak

David told me they only have about 22% of their holdings on display; rest is jammed in the upstairs and in the basement.

They desperately need more space.

I might go volunteer a few days a month to help with cataloging the incoming donations. Get to rub my grubby hands on rare cameras BUT not have to buy them first!

Kino said:

David told me they only have about 22% of their holdings on display; rest is jammed in the upstairs and in the basement.

They desperately need more space.

I might go volunteer a few days a month to help with cataloging the incoming donations. Get to rub my grubby hands on rare cameras BUT not have to buy them first!

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Sounds like a great idea. If these guys had a store, or hit the old annual camera club shows could account for some of the volume. You'd have to be a fanatic! I can identify with that

mshchem said:

Sounds like a great idea. If these guys had a store, or hit the old annual camera club shows could account for some of the volume. You'd have to be a fanatic! I can identify with that

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This is just from donations of equipment. They told of huge collections that have started to roll in from all around the Country.

Common theme: the kids/widow didn't want to deal with all the cameras, so take them all...

Try to find an archive or museum that takes camera gear! Unless it's ultra rare or associated with a huge name, they really don't want to take on the storage and display.