Well, I guess my first post here should rightly be about how I acquired my first (and so far, only) Yashica.
For starters, it’s a Yashica YF, and (as far as I know) is in pretty darn good condition, and has very little wear at all. To the best of my knowledge, it was purchased new by my father…at least my mother thinks that he owned it before they were married (in 1965 I think). Personally, I don’t remember dad ever actually using it, my first recollection of it was just as an item up on the shelf, sometimes accessible to my sister and I as a fragile toy. The only thing I ever heard about it from my dad was something about the film advance being “off”, and later that he had had it fixed, but still never used the camera.
So, it pretty much sat on the shelf, or in the closet, for something in excess of 30 years that I know of. When my father passed away in 2000, I was in the process of moving from Southern California to Central Oregon, and while packing decided to take it with me. Since then, it has still sat on the shelf, since I had a pocket digital camera (an Olympus), and my wife and I received a little nicer digital for our wedding in 2004 (a Sony).
Recently, I have been thinking about stepping up to a digital SLR (I work for a publishing company that produces visitor guides to areas, and good pictures are a big thing with me now). I decided to take out the old camera and find out exactly what it was, and if it was still useable.
Lo and behold, I found out it was actually a rather rare find, and apparently quite a decent camera. Certainly not like my dad’s luck with purchases at all. As far as I can tell, everything appears to work (all the shutter speed dials, winding stuff, lens is scratch free, etc.), but I’ll know better after I put a roll of film through it.
Considering how it had been used in my youth, I was surprised to find it basically scratch and dent free, with the brass showing through on one of the knobs very faintly, and with the lens cover and two-part case still intact and present. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that the pictures turn out to be good as well.