Added more links to the links section of Vintage Camera Online.

There are now 585 links to websites with loads of information for classic equipment enthousiasts. And that’s only part of the links found with the Arelis link management program, which also automatically creates the link pages. Programs like these keep you from going crazy managing all the links

Westlicht PHOTOGRAPHICA AUCTION in Austria is one of the leading auctioneers of collector photographic equipment in Europe. Initiator Peter Coeln has done an outstanding job in the last 12 years to build the exceptional reputation of this auction.

Why would you be interested to hear this? As you probably know, one of the ways to determine classic camera values is to check auction results. Buy the auction listing books with all the details and pictures, check the published auction results on internet, and you have an excellent reference. Formerly, these auction books were quite expensive.

Now, for the first time, you can get the next auction book in CD form for FREE. Visit Westlicht’s website to order your copy. The website is in German but the auction catalogs are in German and English. I’ve already ordered mine :-).

By the way, Peter Coeln also has an internet shop called Leica Shop for classic collector equipment. You can find the latest arrivals at Just Arrived. Latest update is from March 2, 2007. Check it out - it gives a good view of the market.

Back from our trip in beautiful Australia.

After catching up with hundreds of e-mails, here is an interesting announcement by Calumet which was in the inbox:

As mentioned in the previous post, Calumet is one of the huge online suppliers for hard to find photographic stuff. For March and April 2007 they offer free shipping for orders over $50, which will be applied automatically at checkout.

If you were planning to order anything shortly, click on their banner above to get on their site.

Many classic cameras are still being used for several reasons. For example some pre-war bellows cameras are known to give nostalgic pastel-like colors, or stunning black&white pictures. Ever looked at prints from a Rolleiflex developed in fine-grain developer?

Several specialized companies now have online shops where you can get those hard to find new batteries, roll- and sheet-films, filters, parts and accessories. Some of them even have a whole line of used cameras, lenses and equipment.

Two big ones are Adorama and Calumet, see what they have at the Product Sources section. More sources will be added in the future.

Did you know there is a free classifieds site especially for vintage photographic and cinematographic equipment?

Vintage Camera Online Classifieds is a site where ads for pre-1970 equipment are placed for free.

Of course eBay and other auction sites are excellent for buying or selling, but some extra exposure for a longer time wouldn’t hurt, would it? There are also special categories which you won’t find on auction sites such as such as ‘parts’, ‘I want to swap’,'Upcoming Trade Shows’, etc.

Sethuram Chimalgi from India gave a lot of constructive remarks to make the site better. Thanks Sethu! 

Readers of my book “Collecting Cameras Through The Internet” know how to profit from the price differences in the worldwide classic camera market.

Here’s an opportunity to apply the strategies described in the book: visit The International Fotografica Fair in Holland on February 18th, 2007. Click the link “Photographica Fairs” on that site for details. With over 350 tables packed with vintage photographic and cinematographic items, this is one of the largest fairs in Europe.

I usually go there as a visitor (and end up buying more stuff than I can carry), but they also rent out tables for sellers, which come from many European countries and even the US and Russia.

Last time John White, an Englishman living in France, sold me the beautiful Contax IIa I was looking for along time. Turns out he had bought an antique French stereo camera from me years earlier, so we’re even now. Thanks John!

As you know, camera catalogs give a rough idea about classic camera values. Two of the most used catalogs are McKeown’s Price Guide To Antique and Classic Cameras, and Kadlubek’s Camera Catalogue.

Today Lindemanns bookshop is offering Kadlubek’s Camera Catalog for less than half price: €24.95 (about $ 33) plus shipping. This is a steal considering it’s 960 pages with 4800 pictures and over 26,000 cameras described with camera values in € and US $. The book comes with an additional pocket-sized handbook which allows you to always have prices with you when visiting flea markets, trade shows, etc.

McKeowns has more pictures, but I use Kadlubeck a lot also because it lists more ‘modern’ classic cameras also, as recent as 2002.

There is not so much information available about professional cinema projectors. One of the reasons is that the general public goes to a cinema and doesn’t often see these projectors, as opposed to the projectors for home use. Another reason is that professional movies were aggressively copy-protected by the movie industry, so only a selected few were capable of showing cinema movies.

The book “Deutsche Laufbildprojektoren” gives information which is hard to find elsewhere. I remember trying to get a copy of the original book and having to search for over a year to get hold of it (and paying a stiff price too). The veteran collectors who have it won’t part from it easily.

The technology of these projectors is advanced and rugged. The German Ernemann Imperator projector for example conquered the market early. In 1913,  22 out of 28 cinemas in Paris had these projectors. As recent as 1979 some of these projectors were still in operation.

This kind of information and much more needs to be kept accessible as a document of history. Normally it could be made public only 70 years after death of the last author. Therefor the copyright-holders agreeing to it’s re-publication in electronic form August 14 is something many appreciate.

The ebook “Deutsche Laufbildprojektoren” (”German movie projectors”) has a lot of images. To be able to maintain high image quality, the files would become too large to send over the internet. Therefor in january 2005 imaging expert David Lerner was consulted to find the optimum balance between filesize and quality.

For the result have a look at the sneak preview, where parts of the “Deutsche Laufbildprojektoren” ebook have been enabled. In particular the section about Messter projektors.

We’re still on schedule for the launch of the ebook August 14, 2006. Again services of the German based Share-It! will be used as a reliable partner for online distribution, we’re now in the process of testing the procedures. As experienced with the launch of my previous ebook, absolutley nothing went wrong, I’m still amazed with the spot-on efficiency these people have.

“Deutsche Laufbildprojektoren” is an authoritative book about antique German theatre projectors. It was published in 1986 by the “Stiftung Deutsche Kinemathek” and the 3000 copies of the first print are sold out a long time ago.

The book was made in a joint effort by Herbert Tümmel (now deceased) and Jochen Hergersberg.

Fortunately, Mr. Hergersberg and the Stiftung Deutsche Kinemathek have agreed to republish the book. To reduce the high production costs involved, it has been decided to use modern technology: it will be published in electronic form as an eBook which can be downloaded, viewed on a computer and printed out.

And so the “Deutsche Laubildprojektoren” project was born. In the next blogs I’ll be giving more background information. In the meantime have a look at the review.