Cal, I live 2 blocks from this gallery and know it well. A few months ago, I was ogling a Nakashima desk and chair. I went in and found that they were asking $45k. I promptly walked out.
Jean-Mark,
You have good taste. LOL.
The problem with expensive goods is you need to wheel and deal with mucho rich folks who likely know how to leverage and bargain against you.
Also another thing is storage and maintenance as in the case of a vintage muscle car or say a 1949 Harley.
So here are some camera day trading stories, where I wheeled and dealed cameras as commodities.
I traded a Mamiya 6 with a 50, a M3-DS, 50 Rigid V.1, a brassed out black paint Leica II that needed service, along with a Voughtlander 50/3.5 Heliar, for some vintage Bruce Davidson prints (6x9) with the Magnum stamp on the back and a penned in 1967.
The prints are from the Welsh Miners seriies: one print is of the little girl in a church grave yard doing some sort of gesture; and the other print is of a little boy pushing a baby carriage; two iconic photos.
These vintage prints are of an undetermined value because pretty much these were not fine art prints and were kinda emphemra where these prints were never meant to be saved and almost all were destroyed or lost. Anyways these are mucho rare.
I was approached by this art dealer and we made a deal. Years later I got a call, I was with John in Union Square shooting on a weekend. So this dealer called me because he badly needed cash, so I played hard ball and became a loan shark.
Of course I wanted collateral, it is just insurance and doing business, so I ended up getting the M3-DS, the 50 Rigid, and a Canon 28mm VF'er back, along with some rare print/portrait of some hansome German woman who was a notable photographer.
Somehow I got $1.5K of the $2.5K cash back, and I ended up keeping all the collateral. Loan sharking I know is illegal. Ha-ha. I ended up selling the M3-DS, this lead to a profit, and I ended up keeping the 50 Rigid, the 28mm Canon VF'er, and the lovely vintage print.
So then years later I get a call from the owner of the M3-DS who wants to know if I want it back. It once was mint, and it is a rare camera because I bought it from Adorama from my friend Angel who told me I had to buy this camera.
When I dry fired it and advanced the film I noticed that the shutter was loud, and the film advance was stiff, but then Angel explained that because it was so clean that Adorama sent it back to Leica Germany to get overhauled and that even the prism which was separating was resilvered by Leica and it had a brand new "L" seal.
The M3-DS displayed some wear and tear, but because it had slow shutter speeds it came back home at a discounted price that included a discount for a CLA/overhaul. In attempting to work in the slow speeds I ended up jamming the camera and the shutter curtain came loose. Oh-well. A repair is now needed.
So there is a pattern here where I just "mind my business" and all kinds of stuff happens.
Another deal was that I bought this schalloped lens hood for my beloved 28 Cron V.1, that also happens to fit a 35 Lux ASPH pre-FLE, for $359.00 from Pop Flash.
Of course when I brought it to the NYC Meet-Up pretty much it was looked upon as a dumb purchase, but then years later I learned that it was a limited edition, and many owners of the 28 Cron V1 and 35 Lux ASPH Pre-FLE hated the over-sized rectangular original OEM hood and were paying up to $1k for my hood.
One friend from the NYC Meet-Up repeatedly asked me if I would sell him my schalloped hood repeatedly. Since I'm a Smut Queen I knew John C. bought one, but he sold it with the lens not knowing its value. How rude was that when I informed him of its value.
I do miss this 1958 black Les Paul I once owned. It formally was owned by Ron Price, one of the guitar players from Foghat, and before that it was owned by Ronnie Montross, another famous guitar player. Somehow I bought this Les Paul cheap.
Then came along an opportunity to buy a Santa Cruz OM acoustic made from old growth Brazilian Rosewood. Brazilian Rosewood is protected today and it is scarce commodity that is controlled by a CITES Treaty.
I ended up selling the L.P. to a guitarist friend, unfortunately now a dead friend (Mark), who was one of the guitarists from the band Riot.
I traded an old 8 string Fender Lap steel, and a 1930's Marten C-1 acoustic arch-top with the cash from the Les Paul for the Brazilian Santa Cruz OM that I still own today. Today to replace the Santa Cruz OM it would take $18K to $20K.
I do miss the Les Paul because it was a truely great guitar, but I'm not a Les Paul player. It originally came with a P90 and an Alnico soapbar pickup in the neck, but it was routed for humbuckers destroying its vintage value. Also it was mucho heavy with a thigh sized neck.
Today there is even a shortage of both new and used cars. I was lucky to secure my Audi A4 with ultra low mileage, as well as my Baby-Victorian.
Calvin-August
