I wish I'd never sold my...

I know a lot of the emotions on this thread are a bit... gloomy!

But I'm going to inject some happiness into this thread because I just figured out how to post resized images from wordpress hosting!!!

:D

This means I can finally post images! And I will start with this thread!

Oh - and to make these images more appropriate to the conversation here, I sold my Voigtlander R4M and Zeiss 21 Biogon earlier this year. These shots are from an old roll I found from shooting BnW in ChinaTown NYC that I recently developed. I do miss the camera of course... but I moved onto other things so the pain isn't too bad. And, at the time of this writing, I am still buzzing from the fact that I just learned how to resize images from wordpress hosting (had to mention that again!) :D

Original blog post here.

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I have kept most of the equipment that is worthwhile keeping.
No real regrets.
Whenever I sold something that I then missed, I got something similar to it.
 
The only real regret is a Canon F-1n with Motor Drive MF I sold back in 1995. Been trying to find one in as nice of shape as the one I sold for almost twenty years.

And I get twinges of regret about selling my iiif w/50 collapsable cron, which were both in pristine condition, until I remember what a difficult time I always had focusing that camera.

A lot of gear has come and gone over the years, and very little of it had sentimental value (what did I kept), but if I'm not using something, I'd rather sell it to someone who will use it, as opposed to it just sitting on a shelf.
 
... Lamborghini 350GT. Because I can't afford to replace it now, not to mention that there are only a few of them left in the world...

​

G
 
Godfrey may win the whole internet with that one!

I deeply regretted selling my Mamiya 7ii to buy a Nikon D600 I have hardly used, so much so that I've just bought another one, should be here tomorrow. No camera or lens I have ever used gives me the special look you get from that 80mm on 6x7.
 
Steveh said:
Godfrey may win the whole internet with that one!

I deeply regretted selling my Mamiya 7ii to buy a Nikon D600 I have hardly used, so much so that I've just bought another one, should be here tomorrow. No camera or lens I have ever used gives me the special look you get from that 80mm on 6x7.
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LOL! Thanks. :)

I've rarely regretted selling cameras, but I did miss my Hasselblad 903SWD. There's something about the look of photos made with that Biogon 38mm lens that I find special.

I sold the camera in 2005 to put more money into the photo business and digital capture. It was worth it ... until the economy tanked, wrecked the business, and I moved on to a different career. When I had the spare cash again, I found a very nice, somewhat older model of the same thing which I like even more than the 903SWC.

Now I just have the challenge of finding enough time to put it to use. "There's always something ..."

G
 
My Leica M2-R camera body, and my Bridgestone XO-1 (the orange one) all-rounder and Della Santa fixed gear bicycle frames.
 
Steveh said:
Interesting Godfrey, but tell us more about the Lambo :D. How did you afford it so young and why did you sell it??
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I was a college student at the time. A little windfall came my way, I parlayed it and came up a bigger winner with $5000 cash in the bank. All my expenses were paid up for the school year—books, tuition, housing, etc—so I felt pretty wealthy at that moment.

I was driving an Alfa Romeo Spider at the time that I'd paid about $1800 for. I used to enjoy visiting the exotic Italian car dealerships and just looking at the cars. Ferrari, Iso, Lamborghini, Maserati, Bizzarini, Alfa Romeo ... Magical names, beautiful machines. I'd gotten pretty friendly with the owners and other guys working at the dealerships.

Visiting one of those shops, the owner approached me. "Hey, I have something special in the back lot but it's a little too rough to put it on the floor. Do you want to see it?" Of course. It was this silver Lamborghini 350GT with the red leather interior. Obviously a privately imported example from europe ... had the euro headlamps and other lighting equipment, european spec glass, the Swiss stickers and shadow of a plate on it. He fired it up and we took it for a spin. It felt good.

"You interested? I'll trade you your Alfa and $6000 for it."
"Um, Alfredo, I don't have $6000 to spend. Most I can offer is $3500."
Little pause. "Eh, I don't want to deal with it. You can have it."

I knew it must have some problems or he wouldn't be so eager to get rid of it. But, wot the heck, I wrote him a check on the spot and drove it home a little later that day.

I knew little about the 350GT when I bought it. It was a 1964 car and it was now 11 years old.. A little research later on and I knew why he wanted out of it. Lamborghini made about 150 of the 350GTs before moving to the 400GT with an improved engine and transmission. Most of the original 350GTs had problems with oil ways and crankshaft bearings, or something like that. Most needed a replacement engine until after the 17th engine was produced. This was an original car with original engine ... chassis number 01-02, engine 01-11, second chassis and the eleventh engine. Alfredo knew that its time to failure was unpredictable and it could cost him, and it would cost him a lot to overhaul (and do the other work it needed) before he would put it on the floor. He knew this when he took it in trade on a new, far more expensive Maserati.

"Eh, if it breaks I'll fix it myself," I thought to myself. But I knew that I couldn't really afford to own and maintain such a thing for long. All by itself, a gasket set for the engine was a $1500+ expenditure .. and you had to order it and wait for someone to make it. An oil change required enough expensive high-grade oil to fill the Valdez. Not the best thing for a guy who had classes and a part-time job to get to, making a hundred dollars a week. Good thing gasoline was cheap then. ;-)

But dang it was a hoot to drive. To hear that lovely V12 rip and change it up through the gears was a thing of beauty, an aural delight. I was not often discrete ... Ah youth! ;-)

I sold it after six or seven months. Never had any dramatic or overly expensive issues with it, other than that the driver's door electric window would regularly spring itself off the funky trapeze work of cables and worm drives that pushed it up and down requiring a trip to the shop (not the Lamborghini shop) and an hour or two taking the door apart, re-threading the mechanism, and putting it all back together.

I sold it, got back all my money (and a little more) to buy another Alfa or whatever. It was a fantasy that I had the joy to experience, never regretted for a moment that impulsive act. I'll never go down that road again ... Last time I saw my old car for sale, it sold for well past the $150,000 mark and had been totally, completely restored to better than new.

Sadly, I think all it ever does now is sit in someone's garage and get trucked places to be shown. That's my true sadness about the Lambo: these cars were made to be driven, to be enjoyed, by people with money and with the nerve to use them. Now most of them are the elegant playthings of the ultra-rich, who coddle them and polish them, and rarely, rarely ever even drive them. They hold them, they weigh their value as if it was gold, and they totally miss the point of Ferruccio Lamborghini's passion to build the silver Lambo. It wasn't money.

I have had the sound of a V12 singing at 6000 rpm in my ears, pulling hard at 135 mph on a big open curve in the dusk and sunset, flying on the open road. That memory is enough.

Thank you, Ferruccio! And godspeed.

G
 
A great story about the Lamborghini, truly enjoyed reading it. Reminds me of my Volvo PV544 that I bought on a similar impulse and circumstances as you (albeit in the end of the 80s so the Volvo was already an old-timer, build in 1963). I owned and drove that Volvo for about half a year, long enough to enjoy driving from spring to autumn time and then sold it for a little more than I had paid for it. For sure I did miss that car later on but still being student at university were not the best circumstances to own and maintain such a car.
 
Sold my Hexar AF to fund the purchase of an M1 Garand from the CMP. Worth it, but that camera was awesome. Now I have a Nikon 35ti, which would be perfect if it had a silent mode.........and strap lugs!
 
Great car story Godfrey!

The only time I sold a car was to a scrap yard for $100 after it slid ever so slightly off a muddy mountain road. Fortunately some kind stranger with a 4x4 towed me out and in the process dragged the car through a forest, smashing it into 14 pine trees on the way. It looked like a gigantic metal raisin on wheels by the time it got to a road again.

I regret giving away my crappy Ricoh 500g, similar to an Oly RC but with metering in manual, very underrated amongst the 70's fixed lens RFs. Hoping to get another one day.
 
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