Flea Market Sightings

<p>I was in Genoa last weekend on quite a pleasant visit to Italy when we stumbled onto a flea market at the Piazza San Leandro. My wife had brought me to that part of the city intending to show me something quite different but quickly realized what she had (unwittingly) done.<br>

There were quite a few camera and items of photographic equipment being offered. One table had several Zeiss folders in decent shape. I was genuinely tempted by a folder in 120 format with a really clean Novar f4.5.<br>

At a nearby table I was looking at something really trivial and forgettable when I looked up to see the (presumably) local fellow next to me holding a phony Leica cobbled up from what appeared to be a Zorki 4. This one was half again larger than a screw mount Leica, had a full set of counterfeit Leitz engravings and Nazi symbols on the top, and was plated in a brassy yellow metal, probably a thin layer of gold, as, despite many smears and fingerprints, the yellow metal had not corroded. The yellow plating extended to the collapsible Elmar-clone lens.<br>

My command of the Italian language is adequate to get around Italy comfortably and order a decent meal but not of a caliber to point out the subleties of Leica identification to this man. After watching him toy with the thing for twenty minutes, I went to the next table and left him to his fate.<br>

There were several automatic SLR's being offered, notably a Yashica (TLS?) in near-new condition and one vendor had several Leitz 35mm slide/film strip projectors available in various states of repair. My wife, a school librarian and media specialist, knew more about these than I did.<br>

I went up a flight of stairs to shoot a couple of frames of the piazza with my Widelux when I recognized a view camera, visible in my viewfinder, just below me (hard to mistake a goundglass frame and springs). It was a double extension camera that had seen some considerable use but had no maker's identification that I could find. It came with a pair of Tessar lenses and was in an odd (to my American eyes) format, probably 9 cm x 12 cm. The vendor was asking 1700 Euros, IMHO about 15x what the thing was worth, particularly considering the prehistoric lenses that were part of the kit. When I left the table another fellow was beginning his haggle over then second Tessar in a Compur shutter which was already an antique in 1935.<br>

It was time to reward my wife's patience and foreberance so we then went off to other places and adventures. Il pranzo questa sera era buona indeed.</p>

 

<p>So you didn't buy anything then? I really wish I had your sense of restraint. Whenever I've been to a carboot sale, I had to buy something!</p>

Your a true Mediterranean.. food is more important than anything!! I would have been a bottom feeder and looked at hte folder if it could be had at a good price, but when "the fish" stinks like the ancient View caera and the Fake Leica...

you know your talents are better served elsewhere! A la Carte!

<p>I saw some interesting cameras at my last flea market outing. First was a pair of old black Nikon F's, one with the eye level finder, and both with 50/1.4 lenses. The asking price was $300 each. The cameras had a decent finish, but had been sitting in a dusty place for years, the knobs, levers, and focusing rings would barely move. Next were a couple of old Barnack Leicas priced about the same, one of which had a decent Summicron lens on it. The last was a nearly new looking Wista 4x5 SP large format camera which the seller tried to swap for the M4 I was carrying.</p>

<p>For anyone visiting Italy: forget the flea markets, at least as a source for possible bargains. This applies to cameras as to virtually everything else. Flea markets in Italy are very different than in other European countries, and in practice all you will ever find there are professionals trying to sell garbage at absurdely high prices. The only ones to really make business there are the pickpockets, and the crooks pretending to sell "found" (the implication is, stolen) video cameras or PCs (all you will end up with is a carefully boxed brick).<br>

Still, flea markets can provide interesting photo subjects - provided you minf your gear and your wallet.</p>