Stephanie,
You've posed and interesting concept, but there is another side to putting your mark on a camera. Many owners of classic cameras consider themselves to be caretakers of a piece of history and are fancinated by the history of the individual camera.
I own a Leitz Minolta CL. I've wondered (in passing, I'm not obsessed) how the camera got here. It was only sold in Japan, so was the camera purchased by a tourist as a souvineer or did it come home with a serviceman or servicewoman who was posted in the far east? Did someone's camera die on them in Japan and they purchased it for the rest of their trip? Did it's original owner imigrate to the U.S.? Where has the thing been for the last 35 years?This little mystery adds to the fun of owning classic cameras.
I also purchased a brand new M7 kit about 3 years ago. I had partially the same motivation that you're talking about when I bought it. Leicas were the ultimate camera 30 years ago when I first got into photography, so there was also a bit of owning my "dream camera" involved in the purchase as well. I traded about 95 pieces of classic camera equipment for it and that covered about half of the purchase price, so I never really was that sentimentally attached to the classics that I owned and traded.
Every mark on the M7 was made by me and dispite being very careful, there are a couple very light scratches. I couldn't tell you when any of them happened. I think it will probably take another 10 years before I really feel sentimental about it. It's still just an object, even though it was and still is my "dream" camera.
It's very difficult today to find anything that will become an heirloom, especially in the realm of technological items or tools. Things are changing far too fast. The ultimate digital cameras for sale 3 years ago are out of date today. I don't doubt that by the time I've had the M7 for 20 years, film, if it's available at all, will be too expensive to be an economically viable way to make many photographs. I guess from my perspective, if and when it comes to that, I will have had the chance to use an truely excellent camera and set of lenses and will have, hopefully, made many more memorable photographs with it.
