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Pawn shop employees laugh at me.

That's surprising, as pawn shop and thrift store employees are highly trained, well paid professionals. You would think they would understand the value of old film cameras :]
 
A local charity shop had a Polaroid SX-70 kit in a fitted case complete with three rolls of film (35mm Fuji) for the bargain price of £75
 
A few years ago an estate auction advertised Leica accessories. Of course I went to it, but no Leica gear was on display. With some difficulty it was located still in the house. The opening bid was $30, and no one else wanted it. I told the auctioneer to mark it up to $100 as the proceeds were being donated to the local college. Included was a rare 73mm f/1.9 Hektor, a 35mm Elmar, a 135mm Elmar, two rangefinders, filters, and a fitted Leica case, all from the early 1930s and all showing little use. Many years earlier my 8x10 Kodak 2D without a lens but in a case with extension rail, tripod, and film holders was $20 at the liquidation sale of a camera shop. Unlike the first example, there were photographers at that sale. Perhaps, with so much useable stuff, they didn't want to load up on old and bulky gear.
 
paul_c5x4 said:
A local charity shop had a Polaroid SX-70 kit in a fitted case complete with three rolls of film (35mm Fuji) for the bargain price of £75
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UK charity shops seem to check eBay for the highest BIN for the closest match to what they have and then stick a ticket on it for that amount.

they're great places to go for film gear .. so long as you want a fungusy MD or K kit-zoom for £60 ...
 
Have a large thrift shop here that never has anything but junk, they must have someone they let pick over the in coming gear. And pawn shops take nothing but digital. Yard sales produce a few good buys.

David
 

Not my experience. Most pawn shops think they have something rare and mostly over price it. Recently saw a basic Bronica kit for $2000 at a pawn shop. Yeah right.

Or they price it about what eBay sells for, after all they can access the Internet to know such things.
 
Prof_Pixel said:
... and why shouldn't they? Their goal is to maximize the financial return from donated items.
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I'm not saying they "shouldn't", but it would be nice if an item or two would be allowed to trickle through the store itself. Goodwill is not a non-profit and they rely on their funds to pay employee's that would have a hard time getting a good job elsewhere. I do have a very big problem with what some of those so called "non-profit" organization pay their upper CEO's while leading you to believe you're REALLY donating to a non-profit. Of course that's another story. So, if they are sticking all the "GOOD" stuff on auction sites and will end up putting more and more things there for more profit, what's going to happen to the worker on the floor of the store? Or better yet, what's going to happen to the store itself. Since the whole purpose is to help folks with less of a chance in the real world, both workers and poor folks that need to shop there, it seems counter productive for both. That's just my opinion of course and it means nothing, except to me. But I also do not worship Capitalism like some folks I know do. I've seen some of its evils first hand and it ain't always a bed of rose's. John W
 

Not all Goodwill's sell though the auction site, I don't think the stores in the Phoenix area do, Tucson Goodwill does. One of the Goodwill stores in my area had a few collectable cameras priced at the national average. I asked the manager about the pricing and he told me that Goodwill for Maricopa County is independent from other Goodwills and has an appraiser who visits the various stores and prices out the higher end items.
 
Prof_Pixel said:
... and why shouldn't they? Their goal is to maximize the financial return from donated items.
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Agreed. Totally sounds like the normal "Goodwill is too expensive and I can't resell their stuff" I hear on the subreddit /r/flipping.
 
i've seen some very nice stuff in thrift stores
( daguerrian lenses as big as a toy poodle and matted/framed photographs made by captain ferrocyanide
... all worth thousands, selling - for a song and dance ) ( ( $35( lens) ( $50each for photos , i let them go )

but that was 5-10.. years ago, nothing that high-end anymore .
pawn shops around here have nothing .. not like vegas where a speeder is worth "thousands !"

... i was at the local salvation army friday, maybe saturday ( dropping off )
it had some sort of minolta rangefinder without shutter speeds with a light meter driven shutter
( and asjustable or "A" setting fstop ring ) it wasn't priced too badly, 3-4$.
 
" Pawn shop employees laugh at me", you're lucky sex shop employees laugh at me
 
PS...

I think the real bargains are in camera stores nowadays. Many shops will take old film stuff as trade-in then have it sitting on a shelf for ever. I rang a shop the other day about a EOS 3. Mint and boxed they were killing it for £49 and that's with 6 months warranty just to get rid of it. As we were filling the order he said "you wouldn't fancy minty and boxed 1N for the same price? I'll give you free postage on the lot". So I buy a mint EOS 3 and a mint EOS 1N for £100. I then sold the 3 for £85. So that's £15 I paid for a 1N.
 

And which shop was that?
 
I find the best buys in APUG and LFPF classifieds and KEH.
 
mehguy said:
In my area, Thrift shops will sometimes have some film gear worth looking at (SLRs, rangefinders and polaroids) but its mostly just crappy point and shoots from the 90s.
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Well, I love those crappy cameras from the 90s. Some of them. I find them interesting technically and forv their design.
 
film_man said:
T4 cameras in Swindon.
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That's good to know. They used to have a good shop in Newbury full of secondhand stuff. But since the auction sites appeared most of it goes on there I think.
 
I gave up on the thrift store/goodwill/garage store circuit 10 years ago. After a full summer of going to about 100 yard sales and visiting thrift stores almost daily, I figured that ship has sailed.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
farmersteve said:
I gave up on the thrift store/goodwill/garage store circuit 10 years ago. After a full summer of going to about 100 yard sales and visiting thrift stores almost daily, I figured that ship has sailed.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Click to expand...

The ocean liner steamed out of the train station and the train pulled away from the dock.
 
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