What's Your Best Bargain Find?

Bargains well, I don't do too bad.

I got a Serenar 50mm f/1.8 (chrome version, not the later Canon version) for £46 in great condition which I thought was quite good this week.

An MR meter for £30 was quite nice too.

Oh and about 4 years ago I got a Nikon Coolscan III for £52 when they were going for about £200 at the time.
 
Best find

Best find

A Voigtländer Prominent I with Nokton 1,5/50 for 20 €.

I visited a flea-market in the early morning. Under a table with puppets and children's clothes on I saw an older everready case. It was quite heavy, Iopened it and found this camera. Shutter and transport seemed to work. VF was clear. However one former owner has scratched his name in the back. I asked for the price and paid the without bargaining 😀.

I exposed one film and was satisfied with the results. However it wasn't the kind of camera I like and I sold few months later.
 
rphenning said:
An M6ttl and a 50 1.4 for $105?........whew. You win.
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Well I d'know. A Rolleiflex F2.8 for the cost of 2 coffees at Star*ucks? I think that takes the cake.

The bag of of assorted Hasselblads and Leicas would probably be the biggest coup in this thread (so far), and someone else got a Plaubel-Makina and 3 lenses for around $100 (can't seem to find that post). Brian's M3 kit is a tie for mine if you factor in just how much sweeter M3's are than M6's (they just are), and if history matters more than cash, then Raid's the winner.

In my case the M6 and 50 f1.4 were $80, it was the 35 f2 Nikkor that was another $25 more.
 
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I forgot to mention my $75 buy of a Prominent with 50/1.5 Nokton and 35/4.5 Skoparon and leather case for the Prominent. I paid another $75 to repair the shutter release,and then I had a fulling working, very clean camera with two lenses, a lens hood and a VF.

I guess, even my M3 with 35-50-90 Summicron lenses [like new] 35mm Brightfinder in the box, and a list of attachments, plus a Hektor 135 and Visoflex II and ... etc. for about $1650. I kept everything. It was from an old gentleman who bought the equipment new from Germany. I even have the QC receipt for the M3.
 
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Several years ago I found an SMC Pentax (K) 85/1.8 lens with scratched front element for $60.
Before buying I called Pentax; they had the part in stock. With repair my total cost was <$100.

EDIT: KEH currently has one of these listed for *$645.00*...

Chris
 
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so far a Meopta-stereo microma I and a Flexaret III for 5euros each,
a Zenit-4 for 5euro,a Mometta Junior for 3euros
and a Leica M2 with Hektor 4/135 for 7euros.
now i am waiting for the next best bargain!
 
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Geez, I need to get out more! Olympus Trip for $5.00. Pentax MV with Pentax flash, box, manuals and a roll of film for $10. And my pal paid for the Pentax as a gift because I didn't have any cash on me!
 
My bargain finds are sadly lacking the punch of most of the stuff on here. I did however find a Mamiya C3 TLR camera, a bit bashed with a broken focusing screen and no hood, but completely usable, for £13. Coupled that with a perfect 85mm lens for a shade under £25 and it's not a bad bit of medium format kit for less than £40...
 
A few years back I bought a 50mm Leica Summilux from a German seller on Ebay. The photos of the lens were of very poor quality, and the description was sparse and in German only. Plus shipping was to Germany only, but I asked the seller if he would consider Denmark, and he did.

From the poor quality pictures of the lens, I assumed it was a normal E43 Type II, which were all black anodized chrome barrel I believe. I was buying the lens to use.

As a result of the poor quality listing I won the lens for around 350 euros if I remember correctly.

When the lens arrived, I could tell right away that it was a BLACK PAINT lens of some sort - after some serial number investigation I found it was a Type I black paint lens made for black paint Leica M3 bodies, and quite rare. The lens was optically and mechanically PERFECT, no flaws to the glass what so ever, but with a moderate amount of sexy brassing to the black paint.

I considered keeping and using it and being happy, but when an expensive auction house in The Netherlands offered me nearly 2000 Euros for it, I sold it and bought a used 50mm Summilux ASPH instead.
 
I was given a complete Olympus OM10 kit [camera, 50mm 1.8 lens, flash, and strap, leather case all in boxes like new]. The camera did not function. I worked with it a bit and found what I thought was the answer. It worked. [for a while!!!!]. In short, if anyone needs this kit, it is yours free. Just pay the postage. It took great pictures while it worked.

Jrobertson700 @ comcast.net
 
Just on a whim I searched for "R3a" on eBay Sunday morning (have been looking for one on and off for a while now), there was one that had been listed two hours previous with a starting bid of $200, $300 Buy It Now price. I scanned the description, as soon as I saw it didn't have any problems I went through Bing to get the 8% cashback. Wound up costing $275 + shipping. Been excited all week waiting for it to come!

FrankS said:
I just MISSED a black Olympus OM4t for $100 on Craigslist. That would have pretty good, eh?
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I got a black one (UG, just some surface brassing) at KEH for $117, but it had the battery drain issue so I returned it. Sometimes I look at the little Zuiko 50 1.8 I ordered with it on the shelf and wonder what could have been 😛
 
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