Any packrats out there?

[summitar]

Now in my 70s, I am getting forgetful, but a few years ago, with the kids all out the house, I tended to go wild

on classic cameras to my poor suffering wife's distress. I used one of my children's bedrooms to store my stuff

in along with a lot of other junk. My wife tends to be a neatness freak, so she would periodically come in a

straighten up. To me, out of sight means lost. I feared and thought I had misplaced some of my treasures

forever, but I went hunting in the treasure room. I came across a cloth tote bag my wife had filled. It seemed

quite heavy so I decided it needed an inventory.

 

I found the following. Thank the Lord they were all in everready cases so no banging of metal on metal. They

are all in ex+ plus condition and I intend to exercise them.

 

The contents: (1) a Vito B with the shutter range 1 - 1/300 sec, (2) a Rollie 35, (3), a black Nikkormat FTN with

Nikkor 35 mm f2.8 lens, (4) a Kodak Retina IIIC (big C) whose selenium meter is still accurate, (5) a Leica IIIc

with serial #401xxx with a 50mm Summicron lens, and (6) a Zeiss Contax IIa with 50 mm f1.5 Sonnar lens. All

meters and all shutter speeds and all rangefinders seem to be in excellent condition. All lenses seem clear.

 

Quite a treasure trove!

 

I do take a lot of photos but in the last few years, I have succumbed to the siren song of digital with its

instant gratification. I hope I have returned to the wonderful world of film.

[golden]

Sounds like you have quet a collection there, lets see some images!, I also have several, well more than several classics, I keep all of mine in my bedroom, they are everywhere. love it

[steve_dittmar]

We have a "spare" bedroom/computer room that is now nearly filled with my many old Nikons, contaflexes, argus, Retina, petri, etc. etc. not to mention several tlr's and 2 or 3 Mamiya 645's.

I don't know how long this will continue, but so far, my wife has not left me. I wonder how much extra room there would be if she did??? just kidding.. Did I mention I'm now also hoarding light meters, filters, and other accessories? I think I need help.

[summitar]

To John Golden:

 

What? You want me to risk my precious lovelies by taking them outdoors?

 

Our light season in Seattle is all too brief, but I hope to actually use these beauties soon. My first priority will be a Canon T90 with a "new to me" f2.8 24mm lens, followed by a Nikon F with meterless prism finder.

 

So many cameras -- so little time.

 

My loving wife is a good photographer with a great eye, but she doesn't know an f-stop from a door-stop. Be on the lookout for a garage sale where you might be able to pick up a Leica M3 for $10.

 

$5 if you haggle.

[walter_degroot]

I am a 73 year old admitted pack rat.

i have realized that old computer parts have little valus-- otherwise why would I have so many.

I started toosing out the rusty and the very old. The garage is still half full.

I only have about 20-30 cameras. Not sure. some get used frequently. I have to tolerate

"why don't you get a digital" Because all those cd's will fade!

I havent done any "wet work" for a long time. and shoot mostly color print film.

 

if something happens to me they will all be mad and stay mad, for all the work they have to do.

Hopefully I will have a few years to straighten up.

I was told by an older photographer that when the local newspaper photographer died, his wife just put everything on the curb. cameras, chemicals and oher equipment.

[User_503771]

I've got cameras. No inventory yet but there's quite a few.

 

I love to read, so I've got books.

 

Also have a few guitars which I still play but not enough.

 

Yeah, computer equipment.

 

Oh, my....

[bonsignore_ezio]

I imagine people would also call me a packrat, given my 130+ classic camera. I also avidly gather old bayonets and hourglasses. Fortunately the wife is also in a collecting mood on her own (indigenous masks + white porcelain +.minerals +...), so there are no problems apart from the house coming more and more to resemble a cross between a junk dealer's shop and a low-level museum.

 

Seriously speaking, the secret lies in walking close to but not past the dividing line between being simply interested in something, and sheer madness. Point is, everybody will always feel that what he is doing is perfectly normal.

 

I used to know a guy who lived as a bachelor in a small 2-room rented flat, because the larger 4-room flat he owned a floor below was completely occupied by his collection of some 3,000 cameras. Apart from space problems, he could not live there because the flat had to be kept constantly in near darkness and at a temperature of 12°C to protect the cameras. His collection included a blue + gold anniversary Hassie that he had seen only twice since buying it many years before, because as he put it to me "if you keep opening and closing the box it will no longer be mint" (THE BOX, not the camera).

 

Well, of course he though of this as but perfectly normal precaution (he abruptly changed attitude after he met the right lady at past 50, but that's another story). To him, the REAL madman was a Leica collector he knew. This other guy had built an armoured underground cellar to house a collection of 200+ Leicas. The camera were accommodated in glass cabinets with air conditioning and UV light, concealed by a faked library (actually armoured panels). The guy was desperate to ensure that absolutely nothing, not even a microb could sneak in and touch his cameras, and so eventually he had the cabinets ermetically sealed - he could see his cameras, but not touch them.

[richard_moore5]

Oh yes!

 

And I must do an inventory soon as well! I know I have a number of Vito Bs and a couple of Vitomatics, a couple of

Rollei 35s, a couple of Retinas, a couple of Kiev 4as, a Diax IIa, a Bessamatic, a perfect Yashica Electro 35 that I

spent a lot of time refettling, several Contina 35s, a couple of Ikoflexes, a Rolleicord Va and numerous medium

format folders (Voigtlander, Zeiss, Franka) and other curios, filters, hoods, meters, rangefinders, tripods, etc.. Almost

all are in good working condition and many are users as different moods take me. Almost all except the one

currently in use are stored in wooden cases or photographic bags in my small spare bedroom.

 

That would be bad enough but they share the space with probably an equal number of musical instruments, almost

all users, and their cases (apart from those in use which have spilled into the living room).

 

Due to a masterpiece of logistical planning it is still possible to squeeze two guests in as well.

 

Fortunately my partner also likes photography and is a musician so I haven't been thrown out yet!

[chuck_foreman1]

Hi,

 

Oh yes..Packrat indeed .. is this the confessional.. I've got too much of everything. But I do recognize I'm sick! I've seen these shows on TV where they show some people as if they're obsessed and sick. Ok, they tend to pick the real nutty cases for their TV audiences... but I see myself there... why do I have 5xTLR.... other obsolete speakers

and computer equipment. I've got a PC with W-98 in the cellar it has a 5.25 drive in it,.. for crying out loud!! That's the reason I won't get rid of it.. I've got some infor on 5.25 disks.. I've got 30 plus cameras and I did send most of them into a Thorncastle in the cellar as I've raised my kids.. they are now slowing coming back.. but the apartment is bursting at the seams. The Wife keeps asking me to move them somewhere else.. out of the hallway , off the piano,

I've rotated some 35s to the cellar and got mostly MF stuff, but they're klunky and don't fit in drawers like 35mm equipment. While I think the most of us are sick ... at least our condition is shared and not so idiosynchratic as

some individuals who can'T stop buying shirts or pens. I recognized my chaotic self in a lady who kept buying potato chips. She couldn't bring herself to opening the bags that spolied it. Kind of like "Can't have your cake and eat it too"

At least here in our Forum it's like AA and we can speak with other afflicted souls!!

I'm hoping my father can somehow find his stuff.. he doesn't have that much but seems like "out of sight out of mind" (he als in his 70s. I know there is a Pilot light meter , a Speed Graphic 3x4 w/BL barrel lens, a funky Graflex 35mm, a Tower 35mm RF ??? w fan flash. (Dad's ol' faithful) with sundry closeup lenses, Wratten K2 etc. I hope this turns up soon! Well my guilty conscience keeps me in check although there is no cure for the sickness.

 

Yours Truly

 

Packy

[richard_oleson]

We have a 4 bedroom house: the Master Bedroom, our daughters' bedroom (now empty as they've grown up - snif), a guest bedroom and the Camera Room. The latter has a 3x5 foot workbench for camera repair, a computer workstation and a wall of floor-to-ceiling bookshelves that holds the majority of my 160-170 cameras. There are another 30 or so on the built-in shelves in the family room. The Camera Room, I'm afraid, tends to be a bit messy to look at, and my wife's general approach is to avoid entering.

[dennis_w3]

Now you're talking. 3 Topcon D bodies, 10 lenses, a Rolleiflex TLR, Ikonta 518, Voigtlander Perkeo II, filters, winders, close up gizmos, it goes on and on. My fetish for 6 x 6 folders finally burned itself out when I had 12, I sold all but 2 and feel better much better. I also did stints with Nikon, Leicaflex, and Canon, but mercifully, they crashed and burned, too (not the cameras, the stints).

 

But then, last week, when I did my habitual "Ikonta" search on the 'bay, I found myself unable to resist this adorable little 522/24 35 mm folder. 5 days later it's here. It's Rapid shutter works great, I cleaned up the lens fog to reveal its spotless, uncoated Schneider Xenon 4.5 cm 2.8 glass, and it's ready for film after I adjust the focus. So far my wife only shakes her head, smiles, and goes back to her books. I try, I really do, to stop. But I can't. Thank the lord for digital, it allows me to market my excesses online when I get overwhelmed with it all. Long live film...

[charles_stobbs3]

There is a (weak) light at the end of the tunnel. I am starting to unload my bookcase full, especially the junk. The "parts and repair" market on EBay is fairly lively. And my wife is happier.

[miztli]

I am not alone!

[k5083]

I think I may be nearing the brink of the abyss. As long as each of the cameras gets some exercise once in a while, I think I'm okay. But when cameras start to accumulate that are incomplete, don't work, have stalled in mid-repair, or that I just don't much enjoy using, it's a danger sign. Right now there are several that I think I really need to get rid of, even if I have to take a slight loss on my original acquisition cost.

[rose_duclos]

A garage sale leica m3? wouldn't I love to add that to my collection. If it ever does seem slotted to this fate, let me know - $10 plus shipping would be a great bargain. :)

 

I've only begun collecting within the past year -a Retina auto 3, a contax iiia (awaiting Henry Scherer's attention), a Mamiya RB67 Pro, a Praktica TL1000 enjoy space in my home office.

 

My Vitessa T has a place of honor on a bookshelf in my livingroom.

 

my first camera (that I got in the early 80s), a Pentax k1000, followed by the Canon Rebel G (in the 90s) and then later the Nikon F3 (a few years later) all sit in the two small drawers in my liquor cabinet (front hall-way).

 

my digital cameras, both the pentax k10d and my small, old p&S canon are in my bedroom.

 

living alone, I have plenty of options on where to put cameras, and my cats never complain that my cameras seem disorganized, spread across the length of my apartment... :)

[Rob_the_waste]

At least your wife was decent enough not to throw anything out. My wife threatened to put my cameras on the curb in a basket with a sign saying "free to good home." In return, I threatened to tie her to the sign... I still have my cameras. Most of them are users. A few will never see use again, but they still look good up on the bookshelf. I've managed to curb my collecting as I've turned my attention to using the ones I already have.

[summitar]

I loved all of the replies. It is comforting to know that I am not the only madman in the world. When my wife gets near this computer, I will read all of the replies to her. I think the prize winning reply, which had me laughing out loud, was the threat to tie one's wife to the "free to a good home" sign. That is a classic.

 

I wish I could say my obsession was limited to cameras. I used to have a nearly complete set of old Playboy magazines. I have over 2000 VHS tapes in the garage, and worse, several hundred beta format tapes with nothing to play them on. Also in the garage are a working Commodore 64, a working PC-XT, a 486 machine and an early pentium. Remember when a 200 meg hard drive seemed immense? In addition, how can one throw out National Geographic magazines? My wife and I have an immense number of books. I also collect old fountain pens, but they are easy to store.

 

My wife has begged me to inventory all the cameras and lenses with an estimate of what they might be worth. One of these days....

 

Anyway, your wonderful replies have made my month.

[eric_onore]

Forget about the cameras. What about boxes full of T-Mount adapters, cable releases, old flashes, adaptall mounts, toy cameras, hit cameras, slide viewers, old neckstraps, filters, bubble levels, table top tripods, etc. etc. etc.

 

Eric Onore

[james_wheeler1]

Packrats? Collectors? My wife and I have nearly 300 film cameras, nearly 4000 cookbooks, thousands of books on a variety of subjects (science fiction, nature, history , biography, etc.), about 4000 movies on laser disc and dvd, a sewing room with enough fabric to stock a quilt store, enough vinyl records to fill more than 25 feet of shelving, too many CDs, etc.

 

We have the freedom to wander into the library and pick out a book to read, music to listen to, movies to watch, cameras to try out, etc. Why is this a problem?

 

Seriously, we live in a remote valley in the west desert of Utah and have no local library, no stores, etc. and must supply our own entertainment. That we can do quite handily. I spent part of this evening fiddling with a Mercury II camera and finding it to be in perfect working condition. Tomorrow, the Mercury will go on a walk with me to our north fence (just under a mile one way) and get a little exercise. If I fire up the darkroom, we may even have prints in the evening.

 

One thing for sure, we will never be bored.

[summitar]

James Wheeler, I am happy that your various collections bring happiness to you and your wife. So does mine. I just wish I could be more organized and find things more readily. I have made DVD copies of countless hours of TV entertainment, but I rarely get around to labeling them. We live in a suburb of Seattle, about a block from the Microsoft main campus.Our region is the home of Costco, Microsoft, Boeing, Starbucks and Amazon. I am surrounded by six "half-price book stores" which is a chain most located in our region that provides huge amounts of used and remaindered books. I visit 3 or 4 on a weekly basis, since their primary supplier are ordinary people bringing books no longer wanted. It was there that I stumbled on the Ivor Matanle classic camera books that started me off. I have also come across nearly all of the Leica manuals. All of these enrich my life. What bothers me is that at age 71, I fear I don't have enough lifetime left to read all the books, watch all the DVDs and tapes, and try all the cameras. I am spread too thin to really get too deep into any one theme. Through age and ailments, I know longer engage in pheasant hunting or fly fishing, although I have kept all my Jack O'Connor and John Gierach books. I have read all the Travis McGee,

Nero Wolfe, James Bond, Len Deighton, and Spenser books three times. I have read the superlative war histories written by Max Hastings. I have spent 22 years in the Air Force (weather officer) and 24 years at Boeing (avionics engineer on the B-1B bomber and F-22 stealth fighter). I have bachelors degrees in mech eng and comp sci and masters in meteorology and aero-astro from MIT. I have an AKC champion Old English Sheep dog. I have a son who is an army captain on his second tour in Iraq. I guess my major problem is my inability to focus on any single thing that I would really like to master. When I do go through my old books to try to see which I can cull out, I inevitably find some wherein I say, gee, I haven't read this article in quite a while and time disappears, and no books get discarded. I wish I could afford a curator. It is somewhat comforting to know that I am not alone, but my poor wife is not amused. Plus I feel it is my duty to combat the religious fundamentalists on Politico.com, as a native upstate New Yorker who was stationed in the segregated bible belt of the 50s and 60s.

[randyjay]

It's been exactly one year from today since I made a post here. I now have over 80 cameras.

[james_wheeler1]

Kerry has it right. When sorting our stuff, we keep coming across articles/books that we should reread, movies we should watch again, music we want to listen to, etc. Despite that, the sorting is nearly done, the collections inventoried and on shelves, and we have a library (books, cameras, fabric, etc.) open for our perusal. We designed and built our new house in this isolated desert valley with our hobbies in mind and forced ourselves to organize during the unpacking process. We gave away several pickup truck loads of stuff, including a truckload of computers and gear. So far, so good.

 

Thrift stores, including the online version of Goodwill are still our downfall. After all, who could (or should) resist a copy of "Brass, Glass, and Chrome" for two dollars? Who can resist a nice, near mint Nikon telephoto for $25 US?

 

Add in a "yard" that is enclosed by two miles of fencing and you have another "hobby", yard work. Just checking the fence line is a nice brisk walk. Add wandering bison (neighbors a few miles away have a herd), mule deer, horses, cattle, etc. to the mix and life is never dull.

[summitar]

James W, it appears that you live in paradise and have your act together. I live in a different version of paradise and for sure I don't have my act together. But I have good intentions. I am a "weather wienie" aka wag "wild ass guesser" so I have to ask. How are your summers? We have the nicest summers on earth in the Seattle area (all three days!) in that air conditioning is not required, no humidity and few bugs. Our winters are mild but very, very dark (pitch black after 4:15 PM). Actually July and August are very nice here, although I did have to turn on the furnace a few days ago. I grew up in the Niagara Falls-Buffalo area where we used to say that we had two seasons: winter and the 4th of July.

[vaantique]

I'm 19 years old and I already am running out of space! I've got a whole wall devoted to cameras above my desk, my large format cameras are in the cases under my bed, and in the basement in my darkroom is an Omega d2 enlarger along with all my other developing bric a brac.

Here's a photo taken with my 5x7 Burke and James view.<div></div>

[david_m]

You know you're a real pack rat when you buy a camera and when you get it home realize you already have one of those.