Your Great Garage Sale 35mm Find?

altim · Jun 26, 2011

Picked up a box full of Minolta SLR's and lenses, also a set of Canon AE1 and A1 outfits.

I'm beginning to find, after two months of hitting yard sales, that most people have the same stuff. I'd say the most common find is a Minolta SLR of some kind with a huge Vivitar 70-200mm-ish zoom on it and a 50mm. Second most common is the Canon duo, with some similar lens as well.

I have yet to see a Nikon, Pentax, or Olympus SLR of any sort at a yard sale, although I've managed to pick some up from craigslist. One of these days...

elcabezagrande · Jun 26, 2011

Around my neck of the woods, I seem to find Canon, Yashica and Sears/Ricoh K mount slrs and lenses, and a lot of Canon and Nikon compacts. I did find a nice Fujica AZ-1 once, and a Praktica PLC3. The only rangefinder that I have ever found at a garage sale was a Canon A35F.

skruft · Jul 4, 2011

I have had many garage sale finds but the best was a Leica M2 with Summicron 35mm f:2. I don't expect to see any more of those.

Newt_on_Swings · Jul 4, 2011

skruft said:
I have had many garage sale finds but the best was a Leica M2 with Summicron 35mm f:2. I don't expect to see any more of those.

Haha quit pulling our legs

If true, then pics plus story.

Brian Legge · Jul 4, 2011

...skruft, I'm beyond jealous if thats true. I've just recently begun to accept a rangefinder with 35mm framelines would be my ideal camera... so the M2 has been hard to ignore.

I gave up hitting garage sales and antique stores. I usually bump into people looking for cameras at each within 10 minutes of being there. Short of a connection with someone running the things, my chances of a big score were close to non existent.

altim · Jul 6, 2011

Brian Legge said:
...skruft, I'm beyond jealous if thats true. I've just recently begun to accept a rangefinder with 35mm framelines would be my ideal camera... so the M2 has been hard to ignore.

I gave up hitting garage sales and antique stores. I usually bump into people looking for cameras at each within 10 minutes of being there. Short of a connection with someone running the things, my chances of a big score were close to non existent.

Finding a Leica is the garage sale dream, and I think skruft is the only one living it

I figure the only chance is if you're the first one there and scoop up the goods after a quick glance. In the early days I was looking at one of many camera/lenses at a sale, and some guy came and swooped up literally everything other than what I was holding in my hand. Then he stood around to make sure I was buying it before he left.

Steve Roberts · Jul 7, 2011

Yashica T4 in a charity shop for £2.50
Didn't realise quite what a bargain it was until I got home and checked out the prices these sell for (not forgetting the data version that's just sold here on APUG).

Steve

Pumalite · Jul 7, 2011

Voigtlander Bessa 6X9 Folder impeque. A gift after buying other cameras.

mjs · Jul 7, 2011

I did find a Leica at a garage sale, maybe 15 or 20 years ago. An old woman had a garage sale and my wife and I looked at it and turned to walk away. The woman asked whether we were looking for anything in particular and I mentioned cameras. She said that she had one; it was old, bought by her husband in Germany. She brought it out, a Leica (I don't know the model) with a lens and asked $100 for it.

I can't do that to a widow. I gave her the names of a couple of folks who wouldn't rip her off quite that much and went on my way. I wonder whether she ever sold it, or whether it ended up getting thrown out when she passed on. *Sigh*

Mike

tessar · Jul 7, 2011

A pre-WWII Bessa 66 (Baby Bessa) for $15 at a flea market. In excellent cosmetic shape, working just fine. It took me a while to figure out the tricky film advance (set frame 1 through a red window, then close the red window and work a set of two sliders to stop the advance automatically for each succeeding frame), but once you catch on it's easy. It's a brilliantly designed camera, the easiest to load of all my MF cameras and also the most compact. It fits easily in a jacket pocket. Unfortunately the swing-out yellow filter that carried the lens info had been torn off -- usually the case -- but judging by the results and the fact that it's in a 3.5 in a Compur 1-400 shutter makes me think it's one of the better ones, probably a Skopar.
If anyone has one of these and is puzzled by the workings, I typed out a DIY instruction manual for a friend who borrowed the camera and I'd be glad to send on a PDF. Just drop me a PM.

tessar · Jul 7, 2011

Sorry, posted wrong. I realized too late that this is a forum for 35mm cameras.

altim · Jul 7, 2011

mjs said:
I did find a Leica at a garage sale, maybe 15 or 20 years ago. An old woman had a garage sale and my wife and I looked at it and turned to walk away. The woman asked whether we were looking for anything in particular and I mentioned cameras. She said that she had one; it was old, bought by her husband in Germany. She brought it out, a Leica (I don't know the model) with a lens and asked $100 for it.

I can't do that to a widow. I gave her the names of a couple of folks who wouldn't rip her off quite that much and went on my way. I wonder whether she ever sold it, or whether it ended up getting thrown out when she passed on. *Sigh*

Mike

Well, you could have explained what it was to her. If she still wanted $100 for it, you can take it without having a weight on your conscience

I've had one similar great deal on an old Canon rangefinder, I think the seller was more happy that it was going to be used than she was about the money.

Ratboy · Jul 9, 2011

Leica M4 with 35mm type IV lens. $30.

agphotography · Jul 10, 2011

No! Not possible! $30?! Was it in pieces?

Pics or it didn't happen

M.A.Longmore · Jul 11, 2011

.
Minolta SRT-202B, with a Chintzy Vivitar 80 - 200 lens : $10.00 !!!

Ron
.

spacer · Jul 11, 2011

Well... I just bought a garage. does that qualify?

Comes with a pretty decent house, too!

paladin1420 · Oct 22, 2011

Last weekend found a Canon AE1 with a 4 lenses:
Canon FD 50mm 1.8
Canon FD 135mm 3.5
Canon FD 35mm 2.8
Tokina 80-200mm 3.5-4.5 zoom
Sunpak 144D flash
and the camera bag
$35

Jeff Kubach · Oct 22, 2011

paladin1420 said:
Last weekend found a Canon AE1 with a 4 lenses:
Canon FD 50mm 1.8
Canon FD 135mm 3.5
Canon FD 35mm 2.8
Tokina 80-200mm 3.5-4.5 zoom
Sunpak 144D flash
and the camera bag
$35

Excellent deal!

Jeff

j-dogg · Oct 22, 2011

Roll of fridge-kept Ektachrome 64 exp. 1988 and Ektar 25 = FREE

Lady at work has a Minolta 400si with Sigma 28-90 I've thought about grabbing.

mrosenlof · Oct 26, 2011

Nikon FM, free from a co-worker. No lens (I have a couple), he shoots Nikon digital, but has no desire to shoot film ever again.

spacer · Oct 26, 2011

I was out picking through something else entirely at a thrift store, and noticed a clean looking Minolta sitting in a case. I asked to look at it, saw the price was 6.99, and though "cool!"
Well, nothing worked.
I had the lady dig up a couple boxes with some older digital P&S cameras, and was about to thank her and walk away when she said, "Oh, here's one kind of like that first one."
From a tan bag, she pulled out an X700 with a 50/1.7 lens on it, a 28/2.8 lens, a 2x teleconverter, Minolta flash, a bunch of caps, and manuals for everything. The camera also has a leather cover, and the price sticker read $60.00. But... the sticker was blue, and today the %30 discount was applied to blue and green stickers (gotta love those scattershot discounts).
The camera seemed to work fine, the battery was good and the shutter sounded fine... I think there's film in it too, which piques my curiosity. I wanna see what's already exposed!
So... $40 for the above.

One bad thing, though... the camera bag was disintegrating, and a black rubbery substance needs to be cleaned from the surface of everything. Luckily there were caps on the lenses and the camera was in its leather case.

...upon closer inspection, the two lenses appear to have some mild fungus in 'em. The camera body itself was immaculate inside, and the shutter curtain seemed to be right on, though I didn't have the ability to exactly gauge its speed. So, now I'll have to either clean that fungus out, find another lens (wiping out my "good deal"), or... I don't know.

Chan Tran · Oct 27, 2011

got a pentax mx and the 50mm f/1.4 lens for $5. They are in excellent condition except that the flash sync doesn't work. It won't fire a flash either with hot shoe or the x sync terminal. The FP sync worked.

elcabezagrande · Oct 27, 2011

I just now got home from a local thrift store, where I found a nice, working Minolta SRT 201 with the MD Rokkor-X 45/2 pancake for $4.00.

Someonenameddavid · Oct 28, 2011

cameras I bought around town over the past 12 years

these I bought at yard/estate sales for reasonable prices: the M3 DS with a mint 50/2 collapsible Summicron $450. the Contax IIa color dial with a 50 f1.5 sonnar also mint $75 the Kodak stereo Brownie 2a(a truly rare Brownie one of 4000 made, this one is of the first 1000, dates 1904) $25. the polaroid 110a $15 >the Thornton Pickard shutter $1 The Visoflex with 65 Canadian Elmar $150 a C Simlar collapsible 50 f/3.5 $20 Couldn't find the Leotax to go with it, but there was a leotax body cap. not pictured a Rollei 35S German $30, an Olympus XA $3, A miranda sensorex $20 a perfex 55 $5, a visoflex I with bellows and slide duplicator, valoy ii with focotar 4.5 $10.

The places to go are older neighborhoods where engineers lived.
ideally ones who were posted by the military to Germany or Japan in the 1950-s

David

pdexposures · Oct 28, 2011

Last week I picked up a Nikon Coolscan IV with the box/manual/cd/accessories for $75 from craigslist. This thing kicks the crap out of my Epson flatbed.

Your Great Garage Sale 35mm Find?

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