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Dad Photographer
That poor lady ... she did not get rich from her husband's camera collection.
i was riding my bike back home from the market down the street from our house and noticed this tiny little old lady that looked to be about 80 years old fiddling with a jack next to a green 1970 GTO. I stopped and said, this a very nice car, and she said.. "but it has damn flat!"
I asked her if i could help her out and found that she had no spare tire. We talked about how she came across this fine GTO all in beautiful original condition(i think it had about 46,000 miles on it) and she told me she had seen a GTO ad in Playboy magazine back in the 60's and convinced her husband to buy one. Anyway i told her i lived a couple blocks away and would be happy to get my truck and she could hang out at my house with the wife while i went to a tire repair shop. After i got her tire fixed and back on the car she asked if i would take some money for my time, and of course i told her not to worry about it. She then told me her husband had died not to long ago and she was preparing for a yard sale and maybe there was something she had in her garage that i might want real cheap. So i followed her home and took a quick look around and told her i did not really see anything i needed, but thank you anyway. She pointed to an old cabinet with 14 drawers and said how about that? I glanced at it from the other side of the garage and said jokingly to her, how much! She thought for a minute.... and then she said "50 bucks....but you have to take everything in the drawers too" 😀
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There is much honour in that gesture. Sir, I salute you.$0.01 on eBay. Shipping was advertised at free, but I paid it because it was right to do.
What's your best bargain you've found? For example, did you find a nice Leica IIIf at a garage sale for $50? Or did you find a sale of a "Cannon 50/1.5" for $50 because someone misspelled Canon. Or did you find that Canon 50/1.5 on eBay because it was on a Canon IIS and just listed as a "old Canon camera"
What did you find, what did you pay and what do you think the true value was?
I really have had any super great finds. I guess the best were that I got my Canon 35/2 for $215 and I got a Tele-Elmar (user) for $75. Neither was listed improperly, so perhaps no one was looking at the time.