• Welcome to Photrio!
    Registration is fast and free. Join today to unlock search, see fewer ads, and access all forum features.
    Click here to sign up

Your best deal ever?

Recent Classifieds

Forum statistics

Threads
202,891
Messages
2,847,109
Members
101,531
Latest member
F2_User
Recent bookmarks
0
$18,000 worth of college courses for the price of a parking pass and a lab fee even though I have my own darkroom. I tell you about this, not to brag that I have found something someone else did not, but to say look what is out there, possibly for you when you reach that age. This may be available to you as well as me. Fellow Apugger Bob Curtis has started taking courses in the same program.

For reasons that have not been made clear to an obvious beneficiary, the state of Ohio USA wants people over the age of sixty to take courses at state funded colleges wherever there are available classroom seats. I am 70 and have taken seventeen photography and one art history course since I retired in 2003. I followed my best man’s footsteps, who partied out of college when he returned from the Korean War and has now taken painting and sculpting courses for 14 years. We celebrated his 80th birthday in January.

You may say that you are not 60 or even close, but I suggest that retirement plans should be considered long before that age. You may say that John is a slow learner having to take 17 photography courses. I look at the courses as nearly free on going workshops. They are long enough that the project is not ruined by an equipment malfunction. I love the pressure that exists of critiques every two weeks. You benefit from young intense minds, both student and instructors.

I am doing this not to get a degree. I earned that 45 years ago. I am doing this to learn more about the hobby that has always interested me and to continue keeping my mind active in my retirement. President Obama has stressed that everyone who can should get more education. The state of Ohio, very low in the national education standards lists, offers this in any course study, not just art related. Do other states offer it? I don’t know, but if I lived somewhere else I would be looking. When this comes up in conversation it proves to be a surprise to most of the senior Ohioans I meet. Is it possible you are missing a superb benefit available where you live?

John Powers
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Many Colleges and Universities in Canada have the same benefit, unless courses/programs are full.
 
Zeiss Ikon Nettar 515/2, 6x9 folding bellow camera for the grand price of £0.00. Given by a friend who found it in his attic, said it hadn't been used in 50 years and told me the shutter didn't fire. Turns out he had confused the lever that cocked the shutter with the self-timer, and a week later I had a set of immaculate prints from it.
 
$18,000 worth of college courses for the price of a parking pass and a lab fee.......................

John Powers
Connecticut has the same program, plus if you are veteran of any way After WWI you qualify as well. You have to pay student fees and actually buy the books and equipment for your classes (some students were just borrowing the books from the library)

I got two degrees in Engineering on that program, I guess that is my best deal because I use that education to earn money to buy all kinds of stuff.
 
Contax RTSIII with a 50 1.7 Planar for £125 - labelled Contax RTS with standard lens in a shop in Swansea. I just didn't have the heart to tell them that all 4 Contax RTS models simply carried the RTS logo. Also a 150mm lens mistaken for (and priced accordingly) a Mamiya 645 but which was actually for the Mamiya 7 from an online UK retailer.
 
once a my father gave me a nikon F2, i gave him a hug, nice deal hã?
 
330 sheets of Kodak Polycontrast
120 rolls of 120 Plus-X Pan Expired 1996 Frozen
10 packets of fixer
5 packets of Dektol
4 packets of D-76

$100
 
Last edited by a moderator:
An almost complete darkroom setup for $150, everything from enlarger to hundreds upon hundreds of sheets of paper. So far I'v estimated all to be around $2000, maby more.
 
I would have to put my Fujimoto Lucky 60M enlarger out there. Perfectly operational from an eBay seller for $48.00. That included s/h. And that was three years before I even geared up to enlarge. I knew I would use it anyway and even an infinite monkey would see it was too good a deal to not take a chance with it.
 
My wife has instructed me to write it was her, but at the time when were married in the mid 1960s a marriage licence cost the same as a dog licence, I think I made The right choice in this case, she was much quicker to house train.:smile:
 
Olympus 35RC, 35RD and 35SP
Contax IIIa (dead)
Ricoh 500, 500G
Yashica GS, GSN
Konica S2
Walz Envoy 35, M35
Minolta A
Canter Beauty
Taron 19
7 Canonet 17 GIIIs (which will hopefully make 5 working cameras)
...and about a dozen other less interesting cameras for $100

For me, the Olympus cameras were the big find. I'd been looking for the RD and RC... the SP was a nice bonus. most of the other cameras I'll probably clean up, shoot a roll or two to see what they can do and sell (hopefully mostly friends). I've heard good things about the Walz Envoy but don't know if I can deal with the coupled aperture/shutter speed.

Hopefully that will cover the cost of a CLA for the RD and SP. I can't bring myself to work on those cameras.
 
Would have to be either my 50mm lens for my RB67 for $110, which works perfectly, or my Koni-Omega rapid in almost new condition for $150.
 
I got a nice LPL C7700 out of the classifieds here for £50 and I'm very happy with it.

But my best deal; a Contax II in a trade for ten Marlboro Lights.
 
But my best deal; a Contax II in a trade for ten Marlboro Lights.

Good heavens, are you serious??

I picked up a Contax RX for $150. A friend told me to buy it ASAP (I didn't know much about Contax at the time.) Nice camera, works perfectly.
Picked up a "junk" RTS for $25. The LEDs won't light up above 1/15, but everything else works perfectly.
 
Entire colour lab for $2.17...
Beseler 4x5" enlarger, $1.
Ilford automatic RC paper processor, $3.60

Pick up only eBay auctions in a small city are amazing.
 
Well, the Beseler Dichroic 67 I found at the dump was the cheapest, but I consider the 16 1/2" Dagor I got for $50 the best deal.

Charley
 
I recently received a DeVere 54 enlarger from someone on another forum. I paid £30 towards the £43 it actually cost to post it and gave thye other person som Mamiya TLR bits and pieces I had in a drawer. And I have also just received a Schneider Componon 150mm lens for it from an APUG member for just the postage cost.


Steve.
 
Entire colour lab for $2.17...
Beseler 4x5" enlarger, $1.
Ilford automatic RC paper processor, $3.60

Pick up only eBay auctions in a small city are amazing.

how is that even possible?
 
Here are my little treasures. At an fleamarket I picked up a minox 35 gt for € 3,00. The guy wanted 5 for but I asket if three was ok. Bakc home it seems to be working perfectly. I have got a roll in it now.
Also I picket up a dusty Polaroid sx-10 for €10,-. Seems to be ok but don't have a film for it yet.

I am very pleased.
 
My Rollei 2.8C, purchased mint in box in 1980. $400 with case, a couple of filters, closeup lens and lens shade. It has never failed and the shutter speeds are still spot-on. It went into the shop once when one of the exterior knobs became loose and I didn't have proper tools to fix it. Sharp lens, reliable, great image quality. At $13.33/year over 30 years, it's the best buy I ever made.

Peter Gomena
 
I think I have a new favorite, though the one i mentioned on page 7 was a better deal all around.

Lovely condition Autocord for $40. Slight amount of paint loss around the edges and a meter that is a stop slow, but otherwise great condition. It had oil on the blades that the seller didn't want to deal with. I spent about 3 hours of cleaning it and it is working perfectly for me at all speeds.

It beats my last purchase mostly because of how quickly it became a go-to camera. My wife adopted the Rolleicord it replaced which also contributed. :smile:
 
A Pentax LX (the model with the last updates/modifications) with a sticky mirror I found among other bargain stuff in a box standing in front a dealer's shop for € 20. Got it overhauled by Pentax Benelux for € 180, they even replaced the hood because it had ding, works as a new one now!

Philippe
 
Either of these would qualify as a "Best Deal Ever" …

… if they hadn't both turned into "The One That Got Away" :mad:

First up is is an old would, but it still smarts; an Olympus Pen FT half-frame SLR, complete with ever-ready case and 38mm f1.8 Zuiko normal lens, spotted in a Dublin charity shop window for €40. I got up early on the day they were selling the window display, hurried out there on my bike, but arrived to find two other people already waiting outside for the shop to open; they let us in in the order we had arrived, and by the time I was through the door one of the others had already grabbed the Pen FT and plonked it and his wallet on the counter. Damn…

Second, and this just happened a couple of hours ago, so it's still raw; a user Leica M4 in the camera-store window for €269 :eek: Sure, it was dented up and missing some vulcanite, but still, a working Leica M for about what you might pay for a good Nikon F or F2! The real kicker is that when I got there today to buy it, I couldn't see it in the window display any more. I went inside and was about to ask if it had been sold; then I spotted it on the counter, next to a credit card. Yes it had been sold … to the guy in front of me in the queue! If only I'd arrived 5 minutes earlier, bugger and blast it…
 
Photrio.com contains affiliate links to products. We may receive a commission for purchases made through these links.
To read our full affiliate disclosure statement please click Here.

PHOTRIO PARTNERS EQUALLY FUNDING OUR COMMUNITY:



Ilford ADOX Freestyle Photographic Stearman Press Weldon Color Lab Blue Moon Camera & Machine
Top Bottom