Enlargers...again.

S

Stephanie Brim

Mental Experimental.
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I ended up at Christian Photography this weekend. Much to my surprise, they had two enlargers there. One was a brand I'd never heard of before and can't remember now, but the other was a Beseler. A 23C. Looked like a II to me. Had the color head. Lovely piece of machinery. He wants $300 for it with a lens (Schneider), carriers, instructions, etc. I want to know if I'd be making a good investment going that way.

There are pros and cons to spending the money. I know it works. I know it has been well taken care of. They also have a developing kit there with paper and Developer (Agfa paper and Neutol developer) and they sell both Ilford and Kodak paper developers. They also sell the full line of Ilford papers (including the postcard stock). I'm happy about these things.

The cons are mainly the price and the distance from home. It's almost 90 miles from home and the thing won't fit in the trunk of my boyfriend's car. The other con is that it doesn't have a baseboard and I'd need to make one. That isn't so much a con because I'd planned to mount it to a permanent work bench anyway, but not for a little while. The price is the main thing, though. I'm only doing 35mm at the moment and so I don't really need something that large, but when I do upgrade it would be the best I could find for 6x6 and 6x7.

So any opinions from people who have one would be appreciated.
 
The 23C is a nice enlarger, but that outfit is way overpriced in relationship to the marketplace. forget making baseboard. it's a pain, no need to go there.

the last 23C I saw for sale with two El Nikkors, was $40 ! it sat in the front window of a thrift store for three weeks before selling.

Stephen
 
$300 is far too much to pay.

I see these enlargers on craigslist nearly every week. Some way over priced and some reasonable. You should watch there.
 
Yeah I bought a 23cII XL, EL Nikkor 50mm 2.8, 2 easels , timer, trays 11x14 & 8x10, 3 boxes of fiber paper, about 10 chemical jugs, and tons of chemicals all for $200.
 
I have a Beseler 45MX (the older blue one) that's just sitting in storage. I have some goodies go to with it as well, like el-Nikkor 50mm and 105mm, 35mm and 6x7 carriers, some 11x14 trays, 11x14 two bladed easel, and whatever else I can dig up. I have a nice timer but there's a short in the power supply and I'm not savvy enough to fix it. We could come up with a fair price for the whole shebang if you were interested. I remember you're in Iowa somewhere.. how far from Kansas City?

*edit* The original baseboard IS included.
 
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If you don't plan on using the enlarger now (is that why you didn't plan on mounting it to a bench at this time?) then wait. Prices are only going down. (Unless the digital photo bubble bursts, and analog rules once again, as it should. But the odds may be against it....)
 
These days you can often get enlargers for free - folks are just glad to get grandpa's enlarger out of the attic. If cou can't find a free one, you'll find one for under $100.00 for sure.
 
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