What have you just SOLD?

Sold a Leica 28 R v.2 that wasn't getting use. That went fast, no profit but a Nikkor 8/2.8 Ai remained unsold.
Previously used on a long-ago departed D700, so decided to get re-acquainted on a recently CLA'd FM3a.
 
2024 has been a year of downsizing for me. Have you ever looked around your house and thought “I’ve got too much stuff”, “where did all this stuff come from?”.

Throughout the year I have been selling my Audio CD collection. I used to buy music CDs like they were candy. I had boxes and boxes of them. Sold almost all of them for pennies on the dollar; I don’t care, it was better than giving or throwing them away. BTW, it’s hard to give away CDs, nobody wants your old CDs, they already have plenty of their own that they don’t want.

Yesterday I sold almost all my audio equipment. There was an ad in the newspaper (yes, we still have a newspaper delivered to our house) from a recycling company that will come to your house, evaluate your gear, negotiate a price and haul the stuff away. We called them, they came, they paid me some money and now my audio gear is gone. I had 5 sets of speakers, 3 amps, a turntable, 3 CD players… I had way too much stuff that I had slowly accumulated over the years. Now I have a lot more empty space; I like empty space.

I didn’t get rich, but just like old CDs it’s hard to give stuff away (nobody wants your old crap!) and in Japan it’s expensive to throw stuff away. I was so happy to watch a couple of strong young men hauling my old gear out the door while I sipped a glass of wine.

Yes, 2024 has been a good year for downsizing. I hope I can continue the trend in 2025!

All the best,
Mike
 
I don't know if cashing out to KEH is considered "selling" or something close to giving it away but we cleared out a bunch of my wife's gear. Canon T6i, two Oly MD cameras and a gaggle of lenses for all of them. I had the Olympus gear up on the ads here but no interest and I don't like selling on eBay or worse yet the various online sites. She'll find something to do with the money, I'm sure.
 
Haven't sold much in a few years.

I gave my last Micro-FourThirds compact kit (camera and two or three lenses) to my partner's niece. I've been refurbishing and using some nice old cameras, will likely give a couple of them away when the right recipients happen along.

Which reminds me: I finished the test roll I put through the Voigtländer Vitessa today, I should process it now. Enough sitting in front of the screen nerding about... 🙂

G
 
Haven't sold anything in a long while, and have no intent of doing so. I've pared things down to a minimum (with backups!) that should see me through the rest of my days. Of course, this assumes there won't be some major conceptual or stylistic change that will require new equipment, but at this point in my life, I think I've settled into my groove, photographically. And it's about time!
I did get rid of some LTM to M adapters during the Christmas give-away. I have a lot of odds and ends like those that are too small to sell, but of great value to the right person, so I'll be offering stuff up from time to time. Why should Christmas only come once a year? How about we do the Groundhog Day give-away?
 
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Over the years I've sold a lot of camera gear. And inevitably I had seller's remorse for much of it.

Let's face it, we all have too much stuff. Acquired naturally over long lives.

Like Our Good Friend in Yokohama and others here, I'm now at the age where downsizing/offloading is a priority in our household. My (younger) SO is a minimalist by nature and dislikes clutter, so to keep the peace I keep things I've hoarded over the years neatly packed away in boxes, in our second bedroom which is my writing room, darkroom, camera storage room and general jjunk area, or in our garage which has a temperature control system.

These days my mindset is running to one of everything. Except cats (we have three) and cameras (sorry, I'd rather not count).

Now the conundrums - conundra? - are sprouting like dandruff in my hair. What about them cameras? I've been into Nikons since the film era (writing this makes me feel and probably sound like a something extinct) and I have a fair few film and digital Nikons, mostly sitting unused as I've moved to Fuji for convenience and portability factors.

Yeh, what about the Nikons? Do I sell the two D800s and the two D700s and the 10 D lenses? Or one D800 and the two D700s? Or one D800 and one D700? Or the two D700s? And the D90? This one will be a keeper as my SO uses it when we go bush walking or travel to Asia together, but it hasn't been out of its camera bag for 18 months.

The Nikkormat FT2s and the F lenses, the two F65s with the accessory battery packs, the Rolleis - three 'flexes and one 'cord plus a box of accessories, the 1950s folders, the odd-bod digital kits acquired from friends who've given up photography.

Film is now so expensive in Australia, analog cameras are giveaways. Fine Arts students and fashionistas like to be seen with '90s SLRs around their necks, but their film craze lasts maybe six months. This from my mates at a leading photo retailer in Melbourne, they say their film sales fluctuate but mostly down. Not surprising, when a 24 exposure B&W costs $15-$20 and $20+ more for the processing..

We are not DVD collectors like everybody else we know, so that's a plus. I won't list the CDs which are mostly in cartons and kept out of sight, out of mind. I still buy CDs from charity shops for AUD $2 each. So worth not much if anything.

Or the books, the art and photography books alone would stock a top range used book shop.

Furniture, forget it. Young people live in small apartments. Only oldies like me want heavy furniture cluttering up the rooms. So giveaways or more likely I'll pay someone to take if off our hands.

Stereo gear, well. I have a vintage top range 1980s Pioneer component set with TWO, yes, two turntables. One box of 24 styluses, the originals made in Japan. A TDK set worth very little but it has gorgeous sound so it will stay. And a vintage '70s Telefunken console set collectors would pay their gold fillings for.

Unlike in Japan we in Australia often have to pay to have this stuff removed. Most of it will go to land fill as our less than glorious municipality has yet to implement anything to do with recycling or repurposing. Last year our household recycling program was chopped back from every two weeks to once every month - and as we recently found out, it all goes to land fill.

It's all too much for a tired old brain to deal with...
 
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My selloffs seem to occur in waves, the last big one being in 2020-21, with some minor thrift-store donations and used-book sell-offs since then.

Film camera-wise, I feel like I've already cleared out much of the low-hanging fruit: If it was being neglected and it looked like an easy sale for decent $, chances are that I sold it. But I could go further by being more of a specialist, with an emphasis on Nikon S/F/F2 and half-frame 35 mm. Maybe I could clear out my repair queue by simply selling or donating items as-is.

Digital: I've toyed with selling off the M43 gear, but Olympus Pen-F has some pretty deluxe features which I do use, and which are sadly lacking in the Nikon Zfc. And if there's been little buzz in the M43 world lately, the world of APS-C seems only marginally livelier.

And how did I wind up with so many computing devices? I have purchased none in years, sold off an aging iPad, MacBook Pro, and Windows 10 PC during the pandemic, yet I still have 3 W10/W11 PCs? I ought to sell off another PC while it still has some market value. Very possible that Raspberry Pi will play a bigger role in my future computing.

Vinyl: I got a love/hate thing going on with it. I sometimes love being able to fuss with mechanical objects like turntables in a way that I can't do with a music player built around a Raspberry Pi. But vinyl takes up space, it's heavy, and new releases are easily 30+ USD, while digital may cost less than half as much. But vinyl-only releases are a thing sometimes.
 
I've given away equipment, or occasionally traded equipment. I do not need to sell anything. I've picked up a lot of lenses and some cameras at great prices. Sometimes I buy a camera just to give it to someone in my Daughter's youth group that I know wants it. 35mm and Polaroid for the latter.
 
For the last year or two, I've been putting gear in boxes so I can get rid of it. Haven't sold any yet but I expect to begin the process in early 2025. Trouble is, I keep finding more stuff that I need to sell and the boxes are all full. Gonna be a big sell-off when I get around to it.

I'll most likely just sell to KEH or MPB. Not gonna get what anything is worth, not gonna get rich. I will make for a little more space around the house. Maybe get enough to pay down the credit card balance a little bit. And maybe buy another Nikon Z-something. 🙄 Cycle begins again....
 
Sold a Minolta paramender I bought 20 years ago but never used. Also sold a 100mm orestor M42 lens and gave my practika L2 to charity. Still have a 35mm f2.8 flektogon but may sell that as I have decided to get rid of all my M42 stuff.
 
Nothing in 2023-4, but I've expanded my laundry-list of photo-related items that I've sold or given away over the years. It's still very incomplete and lacking a number of Hasselblads, Nikons, Fujifilms and Leicas, but it's only fairly recently that I've thought to systematically document the comings and goings of my stuff.
 

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JeffS7444 said:
Nothing in 2023-4, but I've expanded my laundry-list of photo-related items that I've sold or given away over the years. It's still very incomplete and lacking a number of Hasselblads, Nikons, Fujifilms and Leicas, but it's only fairly recently that I've thought to systematically document the comings and goings of my stuff.
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This is so organized, it scares me! Speaking as a staunch advocate of chaos, of course. As a kid, my mother would keep me inside until I organized my sock drawer, and I'm still acting out in retaliation. 😉
 
stephen_lumsden said:
Sold a Minolta paramender I bought 20 years ago but never used. Also sold a 100mm orestor M42 lens and gave my practika L2 to charity. Still have a 35mm f2.8 flektogon but may sell that as I have decided to get rid of all my M42 stuff.
Click to expand...

Ahem, that's a Minolta Paradjuster. Mamiya made a Paramender. 😎

(I have both!)

I'm pretty sure some Autocord user is pleased out of his/her mind to have scored such a useful accessory.

- Murray
 
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