FUSCO Auction

[JohnTF]

This is the collection from a late Cleveland club member, will be held on line and in Willoughby at E 380th and Euclid. www.fuscoauctions.com, just took a preview stroll, will try to post some "FSU Porn" to get the juices flowing. ;-)

Regards John

 

[JohnTF]

Auction took 8 hours, 700 lots, on line and live. Entire table of FSU items went for a total of about $300, about 20 Feds, Kievs, and Zorki's. A friend picked up some rather rare and unusual Fed lenses I believe.

Anyone check it on line?

Regards, John

 

[Shelley-Ann]

I won some items online. a lot of 8 folders, 1 kiev II, some accessories for my Mamiya tlr and a Zeiss Jena 85mm 2.0. Some of the prices weren't bad; I'm not sure what condition it was in, but a hasselblad 500 c went for about $260. I'm sure some of that stuff is going to show up on e-bay for exhorbitant prices.

 

[JohnTF]

Glad to hear you did all right, the general condition overall was user, the Mamiya TLR looked OK, but there was a lot of very old models. The FSU cameras, I think, were a bit better in general, which is why I posted the photo, but were definitely under the radar for the guys in the room.

The price for the Hassy was high by current show pricing. I recall a 150mm went low.

No one there was really bidding on the FSU cameras much, which I kind of figured as they just do not sell at the shows these guys attend. There were dealers from New York, NJ, and Connecticut, and my friend Igor probably bought more than most, but he was friends with the late collector, and actually bought back some equipment.

Some very nice LF equipment was available towards the end. You should have come down, the Cannoli was free in the pm. ;-)

I know there was a dealer behind us bidding on the Mamiya gear, I think he bought the C330F in the box.

The initial bids sometimes dropped to a dollar, then it picked up from the on line bidding, one item dropped to $10 and people laughed as it climbed to $140, the auctioneer said he was going to begin to start everything at $10.

I think I recall the box of folders, went near the end? Am not sure anyone there was bidding. People were thinned out and tired.

There was a IIIc, item 601, probably shark skin, but the diaphragm was entirely frozen, shutter stuck, the bottom dented on one end from a drop, but it had an unusual 90mm lens. Everything needed some TLC, but the price shot up on line so I dropped out rather early.

The late collector, (Bill) was an excellent machinist and many items were terrific sets of parts, and there were many many LF lenses in brass. Plus, there must have been 100 tripods, some were so large they were strapped on top of cars.

He was a long time member of a local club.

There were a large number of movie cameras and parts. One high speed was said to have been made for NASA to record launches and went quite low. I think it took months to catalog and organize the collection.

There were very knowledgeable people in the room, all those LF lenses start to look the same to me very quickly.

I did hear a rumor that Canadian sales are subject to a special Ohio tax of 200% + a case of beer? ;-)

One Canadian dealer was there.

Regards, John

 

[Shelley-Ann]

I would have come down, but it would be a little awkward, considering I don't drive - Also, it would have been hard to transport the case of beer down. 🙂

I was weird how the bidding went - Some things that I would have thought would bring in a higher price went for nothing.

I would have liked to have picked up more of the Contax II and III bodies - I know two of them had the 50mm 1.5 lens. They looked pretty clean from what I could see.

Actually, the eight folders were lot 125, and I bid on a whim.
I also won the Pentacon six TL body with lens. $30. I think they expected to get around $100.

It was fun - much more enjoyable than ebay.

 

[bmattock]

Oh, that FUSCO.

I thought you meant THIS Fusco...

 

[bmattock]

I had some other links, but if you hit the one I left it would take you where you needed to go. FUSCO is local I believe, and has auctions every week of various things, it took a lot of effort to put this one together.

The comic strip is called "The Fusco Brothers." Just trying to inject some humor.

 

[bmattock]

Kinda got a one-track mind, dontcha?

 

[frendakfurnari]

Hi John,

I'm the dealer from NJ (Bert Furnari) who bought the C330F in the box among others (personal favorite - the Plaubel Makina 67 with the Nikkor lens. 2nd, the Koni-Omegaflex). Were you just in front of me with a hat, the fella who the puppy kept pestering for whatever was in that bag? Igor was two rows and directly in front of me on the aisle. Anyway, it was a good day for most everyone I think. Igor really knows his stuff, much more than me, especially when it comes to LF and movie equipment. I did buy the one Mitchell parts body because it had a 40mm Cooke Speed Panchro that I may have converted to Leica thread. And if you look at your picture, lot 231 on the lower left, was billed as two Zorkis but was actually two FED 1 bodies. One is a FED S (or C, depending on your reference) pre-war with a 1/1000 top shutter speed. A pretty rare camera. Unfortunately it has the wrong F2 lens but for $25 (for the pair) who's complaining. I normally don't pay much attention to Russian cameras unless I see that brushed/satin chrome of the early ones. It always worth taking a closer look if they have that finish. A few other items went for a song too. I stayed out of the bidding on the Nikon RF case because I wanted the fella who won to stay out of the bidding on the Angenieux 90 f2.5 in Leica mount. The Nikon case went cheap and the 90 didn't. It went to $600. I stopped at $575. Oh well. That's a great lens, and fairly compact. Would have been nice to have at least for a little while.

All in all a very impressive assortment of stuff, made moreso by the various clever modifications of Bill, the past club president. He did some nice work. I understand some nice stuff was dealt with independently of the auction as well. Well, I hope you enjoyed the day. It was long but good. And I met enough nice people that I may start coming out to do the Cleveland show.

Anyway, I'm not much of a poster here (maybe twice previously) as I get my fill of camera talk most every day without even trying. But I was trying to look up an item from the auction and noticed your thread so I thought I'd chime in as those sorts of auctions are few and far between.

All the best - Bert Furnari

 

[JohnTF]

Bert, I was between Igor and Art, both know much more about all that stuff than I, big surprise. I also bid on the Angenieux -- if it was the one in LTM, but it got too rare too fast for me to consider.

Really nice you stopped in, glad to see some folks here got a few pieces, Shelley-Ann ended up with all the C330 parts.

I saw your camera "walk by"

I had a feeling the main crowd would not be interested too much in the FSU equipment in general and there would be some buys for RFF folks, and even then I was surprised they blew through them two and three at a time.
Had you noticed the lens problems, they might have been swapped around correctly before the auction.

Igor helped put some parts right, and he noticed that some of the Soviet lenses were quite old and rare, I think Fed 1, maybe pre war? and he bought those.

I think he was right when he said there would not be many of such auctions, until it is time for one of "us", but mine is more likely to end up in a yard sale.

Listening to Igor, he really knows about lenses and those motion picture cameras, he said today that many are really quite valuable, if you do not break the springs on the car on the way home.

Thanks for the shout out, they are trying to put in another Cleveland Show as of yet unscheduled. Abe has taken over Photorama from his dad. If there is nothing you buy, you can always have a beer in Richfield. Talk to them, or Igor, he runs the club's show now.

The Nikon case was actually sitting with the free ones for awhile I thnk during the week ;-)

Regards, John