The Holy Grail of Yard sale Finds

I have been looking in thrift stores and yard sales for a 50mm lens w/ no luck whatsoever. I'm selling all of my gear to go back to painting but want to keep one camera just in case, and need a 50 lens. The yard sales and thrift stores have yielded nothing, but on the way back from the market this morning I saw a little hand lettered sign that said "garage sale". I almost passed it up as my bike basket had eggs in it, and I wasn't sure I could carry anything else. I turned and saw the yard sale, along w/ this guy w/ boxes in the boot of his car thatwere full of cameras, lenses, camera cases and flashes. Seems a friend of his had a camera repair business and the friend had recently died of cancer, so the guy had cleaned out his friend's place and was getting rid of the stuff for whatever he could get before taking it to the dump. Most of the cameras were junk, or things like Canon AE-1 Programs and A-1s that had no batteries, so who knew if they worked? He had an awful lot of Minolta SRT SLRs. I didn't have time to comb through all the zoom lenses, but found:

3 Canon FD 50 1.8s
5 Minolta MD Rokkor X 50 1.7s
1 Minolta Rokkor 50 1.7
1 Minolta Rokkor 1.7
2 Minolta Rokkor X 45 2.0
1 Nikon N90 mint in the box (looks brand new)
1 Pentax M 28 2.8 K mount
1 Nikkor AI 28 2.8
1 Toknia AI Nikon mount 28-80 3.8 4.8
2 Olympus Zuiko Auto S MC 50 1.8
1 Super Albinon MC 2X Teleconverter in maybe K mount
1 Minolta MD 135 2.8
1 Minolta MC Tele Rokkor QD 135 3.5
1 Vivitar 135 2.8 Nikon mount
4 various UV filters and a few rear caps for the lenses

They're all clean, except for a couple of the less expensive lenses that have a few minor scratches on the front elements

And last but not least (he he), a Linhof Schneider Tele-Xenar 180 5.5 w/ a little red diamond on the front, and in a Synchro Compur shutter that runs to 1/500. It's in a lens board too. Needless to say, I found room on the bike to haul all this home in a box bungied to the rack.

Total price was $70, and he would have taken half that I'm sure. I was due some luck, but didn't expect this. Now the cat can have some GOOD food! Maybe I'll buy a lottery ticket while I'm on a roll.

Hell, I'll give ya $70 just for the Schneider 180.

Da-yum!

Beware of the self appointed forum moral standards judgement panel who've been very active just recently

I thought about that Rob. It's OK. I could care less what someone else thinks. Besides, I DID give him $70 when I probably could have got it all for a lot less. He offered to give me the whole lot of maybe 50 more lenses for the money that I gave him and I declined. Leave some for the next guy.

I read a thread on that subject recently, and if it was an old widow w/ bills to pay, sure, you do it differently. But a guy like this, w/ several cars, a big 2 story home in a nice neighborhood, and someone who told me that he had no intention of selling the stuff on ebay or anywhere else because he didn't know how that worked and didn't want to deal w/ it...I gave him a decent deal. You know, just as its caveat emptor for the buyer, it's the same for the seller. If I had made some mistakes I could easily have lost money. Anyway, I'm pretty darned happy. Lately, I've been on the short end of things, so its good to turn it around.

A Grrrrrrrrrrrrail! (Sorry, couldn't resist).

OK I have no idea why the xenar is so special. $70 is certainly cheap but what is the significance of the little red dot? I'm sure I used to know as I've heard about red dot markings before but I thought it was on some pretty old lenses but I've completely forgotten exactly what they mean.

RobC said:

Beware of the self appointed forum moral standards judgement panel who've been very active just recently

Click to expand...

to hell with them. I have standards for dealing with yard sales: They had the opportunity to check the value, they didn't, I pay what they ask if it is really cheap. Ditto thrift stores.

Having said that, if someone says "Gee, my dad left me this, i was thinking of selling it for $10 but I dunno what it's worth," then I figure I've been asked and give them an honest evaluation. Fair is fair.

And $70 for this bunch of lenses, by the way, looks to be to be more than fair, if not generous. The 180 is his fee for hauling the rest of those high-falluting loupes home.