[LargeFormat] off list

[Vincent Dobson]

Your mentioning of a Rollei SL66 brought back a painful memory.  While in
Germany (Army) in 1969 I bought a SL66 with the 150 and 50 lens (all for
around $600!) .  After the service an irate mother (the post office lost the
wedding negatives and we had to re-stage) made me turn to taking pictures of
trees (never complain) -- While raising a family I fell into a photography
non use period.  I let a friend keep and use my SL66 and ended up basically
letting him have it in trade.  After a while he was not using it and his
(quite stupid) wife sold the SL66 and the two lens at a yard sale, one day
when he was gone, for a whopping $50.00!  Ten years after that I found it in
a pawn shop (complete with the manual and my notes therein) for sale for
$1100.!  Unfortunately at that time I could not afford to, or I would have
bought it back.

So I'm still not watching yard sales - know I should, just not my thing.
Can you imagine the luck of the person that found that deal.  My friends
wife was so pleased that it had "sold" - "Gotten stolen" would be a better
term.  Before changing to large format I loved to use my Nikkor 8008S - and
will pick it back up if I travel via plane --- no way to carry all of my 4x5
gear as carry on and packing in luggage is an invitation to being stolen.

Vince Dobson
Visions In Nature
www.VisionsInNature.com