Do you care about your cameras history?!

Most of my cameras came to me from family. I have a Nikon F that was my brother's, but he was the second owner. The story went that a doctor in Fort Worth had traveled to Tokyo in the early days and bought the camera new, before they were exported to the US. He later had it modified to take the Photomic finder.
My Dad's Contax IIIa with three lenses was bought used, probably from The Camera Store in FW, and we don't know about previous owners, but ZICG has confirmed that the camera was built in '56.
My Leica M3 was too clean when I got it to have been owned by a pro. Used from KEH.
I'd LOVE to know more about my '51 Rolleiflex, but the shop I bought it from didn't know anything.
I'd like to know whose phone number is engraved on the back of Dad's Contax.
 
Addy101 said:
Your FED5 might be used in the bloody Soviet war in Afghanistan.
Click to expand...

It were made in 1991 (have papers) after withdrawal from Afghanistan when Soviet regime already had gone belly up after exhausting war, so not the case. Interesting if they had any desire to carry another metal brick to take pictures when any distraction would make them into Cargo200 much sooner.
 
It's nice to know the production date of older cameras and lenses, but other than that I don't see any reason to know more. I use them to take photos and that's all I am interested in. I guess after that it's camera worship or something that I don't understand. - jim
 
barnwulf said:
It's nice to know the production date of older cameras and lenses, but other than that I don't see any reason to know more. I use them to take photos and that's all I am interested in. I guess after that it's camera worship or something that I don't understand. - jim
Click to expand...
I'm getting to be a history buff in my old age, so things like geneology and histories of "things" is becoming more interesting to me now. The cameras I'm using now are the newer Nikon FM types.
 
Hi,

The only point about the date for me is getting lenses etc of the same vintage.

It would be more useful to have the service history but, well, they'd be like the ebay versions. ;-)

Regards, David
 
The only history that would be of any use to me is if the camera, lens, flash or whatever was abused...if it's been serviced by a reputable repairman or a hack...or if the serial number makes it one of the first or the last of its kind...
 
I care out of curiosity sometimes, like finding out how a 76 year old camera can look brand new including the original leather case.
 
After reading thru portions of this thread I say No. I'm now afraid I might find out some of my gear might of been made by a mfg. who worships satan & I've had a spell cast on me.😉
 
From what others have relayed above, you'll only really know the story of a camera that one of your own family members or friends have bought new. I know the story of 3 of my cameras.

Canon FX 35mm SLR, purchased around 1964 by my uncle, with 58mm f/1.2 FL lens and black everready case. He sold it to my father in 1972 for $200, which was pretty expensive in '72. It suffered from dried up lubes, foam eating the pentaprism silvering off, and helical grease gumming up the aperture mechanism. I wasted too much money restoring it (including a prism transplant), then I got fed up and sold it at a significant loss.

Canon FX, again 1964 vintage, with 58mm f/1.2 FL lens and black everready case. This one belonged to Clarence Gass, the repairman. It was his own camera, and of course he took exquisite care of it. When he retired, he called me up and asked if I had any interest in it. It immediately brought back memories of my first FX, which was my first 35mm camera also. So, I bought it. It works great, and the meter is accurate too.


Nikon F3 - this one was purchased early in 1983 by a man who moved from California to Toronto. The camera had only recently been introduced by Nikon. He couldn't make ends meet in TO, and he sold it for rent money. I paid $800 then, which is about 4X what a used F3 sells for now. I kept it in near mint condition for the next 30 years, with servicing by Authorized Photo Service, in Morton Grove IL. The latest service was just one year ago. Earlier this year, I was in a financial crisis, and sold my F3 along with my Leica M gear for money.

Karma, my friends, karma keeps happening.
 
I like the history of all my antiques. Unfortunately, it's so often lost. But when I know who used equipment before me, what their life was like, it's a tie to another time and place.
 
It would be neat to know the history of a camera. I know whomever wound up with my first Nikkormat doesn't have the foggiest notion that it was used to take photos while the USS Joseph Hewes (FF-1078) became the first US warship to fully transit the Suez canal since the '67 war. But then, they probably wouldn't care, either.

PF
 
I have often wondered about the former owners of my 1957 and 1962 Zorki 4 cameras. Did they play any part in the historical events that took place during those two years?

Mike
 
A number of years ago, I acquired via e-Bay an 1890's Rochester Optical Company Pony Premo 4x5 camera outfit.

The seller was about an hour away, so I met them to pick it up. The rendezvous was in Wysox, PA, a rural agricultural burg in North-central PA.

The camera was in its original leather "system case", which had one pocket for the camera , the other pocket for four double-sided plate-holders. In addition, there were several dozen card-stock mount boards, some home-made brass oval-vignette frames, a couple of contact printing frames, a ferro-typing plate, and a rubber "brayer" type roller ( probably for cementing the prints to the mount cards.), a fossilized bulb release and tube, and an original instruction booklet.

So, this was somebody's circa-1900 photo-outfit.

That was neat enough, but in one of the contact printing frames, I found a glass-plate negative, of two women, and a man, all in simple farm-type attire, posed in front of a fairly crude clap-board farm house.

Perhaps the camera's original owners ?

One of these days, I am going to print the negative, and offer copy to the appropriate historical society from where I believe the camera was from... perhaps some amateur genealogist will recognize a long-lost ancestor ...

Aside from cameras that belonged to family or friends, I usually don't give much thought to my cameras' histories, but this Premo outfit is somewhat compelling...
 
Luddite Frank said:
A number of years ago, I acquired via e-Bay an 1890's Rochester Optical Company Pony Premo 4x5 camera outfit.

The seller was about an hour away, so I met them to pick it up. The rendezvous was in Wysox, PA, a rural agricultural burg in North-central PA.

The camera was in its original leather "system case", which had one pocket for the camera , the other pocket for four double-sided plate-holders. In addition, there were several dozen card-stock mount boards, some home-made brass oval-vignette frames, a couple of contact printing frames, a ferro-typing plate, and a rubber "brayer" type roller ( probably for cementing the prints to the mount cards.), a fossilized bulb release and tube, and an original instruction booklet.

So, this was somebody's circa-1900 photo-outfit.

That was neat enough, but in one of the contact printing frames, I found a glass-plate negative, of two women, and a man, all in simple farm-type attire, posed in front of a fairly crude clap-board farm house.

Perhaps the camera's original owners ?

One of these days, I am going to print the negative, and offer copy to the appropriate historical society from where I believe the camera was from... perhaps some amateur genealogist will recognize a long-lost ancestor ...

Aside from cameras that belonged to family or friends, I usually don't give much thought to my cameras' histories, but this Premo outfit is somewhat compelling...
Click to expand...
Far more likely to be the last customers before the photographer upgraded to that new-fangled roll-film.
 

The Nixon Exa by berangberang, on Flickr

I usually only look into things in instances like these - where there's a name connected to the camera (or sometimes some sort of interesting artifact is hanging around in the case, etc.)

I still don't know who M.E. Nixon was, but I did find an article about his Daughter's wedding, and I assume he must have documented the event with this camera. That's sort of a nice connection with a camera's past, although in the bigger scheme of things it means nothing.
 
Well this has had a bit more interest than I thought...and a real mix in views! Thanks all for your thoughts!!

Here's where I was originally going... Probably (I think) more than any other camera maker, Leitz has historical factory records of sales, service and upgrades dating back to the 1920's and 30's - I still think it would be great if more of this info was in the public domain (but I understand why it isn't!)

I have a Leica III that started life as a Leica I that most likely had at least one factory upgrade in the early to mid 30's. It would be great to find out who owned it and more about it's history (I'm sure Leitz would know)...but would it change anything?...probably not!.....and if it was someone 'notable', chances are you would be too scared to use it again for what it was originally intended...remember this?!

http://www.rangefinderforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=143564

I couldn't carry around a camera 'valued' as much as a house!
 
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