Great but sad haul.

Over the weekend, a local camera store finally went under. Bangor Photo had been around for many years, and even though they had gone over completely to digital, they just couldn't keep up. Everyone now uses their phones and if someone wants a better system, they'll go to places like Best Buy or B&H, etc. They had a 'garage sale' where they brought out what they had of analogue equipment and I bought over two days:

Chrome Pentax Spotmatic SP body-a little dirty, but the shutter seems to work at all speeds. Foam almost gone, but the mirror foam seems good.
Black Pentax MX body-the meter works fine, shutter speeds also seem alright. Foam condition the same as the Spotmatic.
Yashica GSN-rangefinder a little off on infinity, I shot some Fuji 200 C-41, they seem very sharp. Need to replace all the foam.
Sunpak Auto 522 flash with bracket, sync cord, an extra sync cord, and a nicad battery pack (who knows if it would work, and they didn't have the charger for it). The only drawback is that the AA battery holder is gone, I'll have to find one online, and if I do, hopefully it'll work. Because the AA battery holder was gone, he sold the whole kit for a $1.
Vivitar M42 Auto 2X Tele-converter, great condition.
A packet of Kodak fixer, already mixed.
Three bottles of Edwal Hypo Check.
A 20" cloth cable release.
Two 55mm lens caps.
A 49mm rubber lens hood.

Grand total:$35. I've gotten some good deals in the past (and made some bad ones which I'm too embarrassed to mention), so it felt great and sad because talking to the owners and people who were customers for many years (I've only been in the area for 10) they were discussing that they don't mind shooting digital, but they really miss film. The owners were very stoic, but I could tell they were a little down. It just made me more determined to keep shooting film. There are not too many around these parts that do.

I let them know about APUG, so maybe some equipment that was left over will crop up here.

Chris

Sounds like you got a good deal, but like you said it is sad that the shop is closed.

Jeff

It's not B&H or Adorama that put them out of business. It's Amazon and the Internet.

I'm always sad to see a bricks-and-mortar store go under. I understand what you mean about a "great but sad haul."

Sounds like like you got some bargains there, but sad circumstances as you say. By comparison with many places your shop actually did quite well to stay in business this long - not much comfort in that though.

elekm said:

It's not B&H or Adorama that put them out of business. It's Amazon and the internet.

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No. "We" did. If we wanted them and their business model around enough they would have survived.

I stop by the local camera store once a week willing to spend money, but they make it difficult by not having a stock of film, developer and fixer. I'm willing to pay a premium for convenience and to support a local business. Instead they ask me to wait a week while it ships from the same online retailer I could be buying it from.

Why should I buy locally, when a business won't provide a "store", items availalble at any time for purchase at my convenience?

I saw the announcement in BDN some time ago that Bangor Camrea was to close. What a shame and a sad time for the owners, I'm sure. Sometimes I think it is a lot better when shops let a consolidator take over to close them out... at least from the emotional perspective.

Richard Sintchak (rich815) said:

No. "We" did. If we wanted them and their business model around enough they would have survived.

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Is Bangor a big enough town to sustain a camera store with its "footfall" or did it do a lot of mail order business? If "we" refers to analogue only enthusiasts such as we are on APUG I'd be surprised if we had much if any hand in the store's demise.

pentaxuser

I, too, try to patronize my local stores. Not just photo stores, but with everything - hardware, grocery, clothing, auto parts, etc. Unfortunately it's hard for the smaller ones to stay in business. Don't know what I'll do if our local hardware store goes under. Sure can't find the good stuff at Home Despot or Lowely. We had a wonderful toy store in town. Had really good stuff - not all the electronic junk. They closed this Spring. We kept the Grandchildren stocked with toys from there - not don't know where to find the good stuff except on-line. Just sad.

Oreston makes a good point. For the population of Bangor (approx 32,000 people, around 140,000 in the region) they did make it last longer than one would expect. I didn't do much shopping there because when I moved here I was in the middle of a time where I had lost interest in photography. When I (thankfully) got bitten again by the photo bug, they had gone over to digital and didn't have much in terms of analogue. I did, however, buy my Calumet monorail from them, and when I mentioned that I was thinking of getting back into processing my own film, the co-owner (he co-owned it with his wife owned) disappeared into a back room and came out with a 125ml bottle of Rodinal and gave it to me. Three years later I finally used it, and the results were as good as if the bottle had been manufactured a couple of months earlier.

michr said:

I stop by the local camera store once a week willing to spend money, but they make it difficult by not having a stock of film, developer and fixer. I'm willing to pay a premium for convenience and to support a local business. Instead they ask me to wait a week while it ships from the same online retailer I could be buying it from.

Why should I buy locally, when a business won't provide a "store", items availalble at any time for purchase at my convenience?

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I feel the same about my local store, I like to spend some, but not a lot of money, to support them. But somehow 'they don't let me'.

Yes it is rather sad that some stores only stock limited supplies. I guess it's a bit of a catch-22 situation, they need to stock the product for us to purchase, but need us to spend $$$ for them to stock it.

I've often wondered why some don't build a database of their "analog" customers and send out a monthly newsletter (reminder) to keep us update on their current products, with the opportunity to place an order for new stuff we are about to run out of or would like to try?

On another thread, Agfa's Sistan was mentioned, and I'd really love to get my hands on some, problem is, there doesn't seem to be a supplier in AU. If I was to order internationally, I need to put in a "minimum order" of quite a lot - Euro30.00/GBP35.00 etc.

Doesn't make sense when all I want is a Euro6.90/GBP7.00 item . . . . .

I agree that if there were a lot of money in analog photo supplies, my local store would have the shelves full of these items. On the other hand, from my perspective they're always sold out, so there's no telling how popular the items actually are. If they can't keep the stuff in stock, because it's getting bought up before they can get more, isn't that a good thing from a business perspective?

Philadelphia has but one store, Webbcam, but they, too, are now almost entirely digital. Calumet went under. When I came here in 1990 there were at least half a dozen legitimate stores. - David Lyga

David Lyga said:

Philadelphia has but one store, Webbcam, but they, too, are now almost entirely digital. Calumet went under. When I came here in 1990 there were at least half a dozen legitimate stores. - David Lyga

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The rest of the stores were bastards?

LOL

Sirius Glass said:

The rest of the stores were bastards?

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Sirius, you are seriously funny. - David Lyga