| The tortuous path towards a camera collection Part 2 - Case histories |  |
| Maurizio Frizziero | |
| The tortuous path towards a camera collection Part 2 - Case histories | |
| Maurizio Frizziero | |
 Morgan Tottenham Court Road |
Case histories Once, many years ago, I was in London, at Morgan in Tottenham Court Road, and the Kine Exakta II that I had in my hands seemed to me a bit expensive. I wound it on and tried pressing the shutter release button. The curtain didn't move. I looked at the assistant who immediately told me that it was surely a minor mechanic breakdown and that any camera repair laboratory would have a remedy. I was given a rebate of twenty pounds. I thanked him, I paid, I opened the waist level finder and the release functioned. In fact it was the correct method of operating that type of Exakta, in order to prevent accidental clicks. I noted it several years before in a shop of Recco, a small town near Genoa, where everything was done by the dealer. He showed me the camera, he opened it, he removed the lens in order to demonstrate to me the condition. At the moment of the click, the curtain didn't function. He told me he was desolate, he didn't know it and, if the Exakta II was still of interest to me, the price was 150.000 instead of 200.000. When I reached home I discovered what the problem was. (Peter Longden adds: A note to those collectors who may not be familiar with the Kine Exakta and Kine Exakta II; there is a locking device in wlf hood which blocks the shutter release when the hood is not open.) Again, a proof of the poor knowledge of Ihagee when dealing with so-called experts. I began slowly to know the models and the relative prices and to withdraw from the purchase (seldom!) when the price greatly exceeded the real value. I thus saved some money, although at times I missed some pieces that today I would like to have. Other times I let me "tangle": in 1983 I was in New York, at Olden (Broadway 1265) and I saw a VX 500 that I didn't yet have it, at $65. They sold it to me at 65 (plus 7% local tax) but not before astutely removing the Pancolar. Other times, having acquired a camera which was in the showcase with the leather case, the dealer asked me if the case too was of interest to me (that means ten pounds more!). Although I have had some small disadvantages (compensated however by pleasant surprises) I feel, after some years, satisfied with my purchases, above all, those made in the shops of specialized dealers.
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 M. Cipiere, Paris Boulevard Beaumarchais |
It was April 8th 1988. For the first time I approached Cipiere, in the Boulevard Beaumarchais in Paris (they call it the "Boulevard de la Photo", for its many specialized shops). Inside, in a little showcase was an excellent Exakta B, at the price of 1.500 French Francs. I asked to a salesgirl if I could see it, but she answered that for that camera she had to call the proprietor. Mr Cipiere arrived within a few minutes after. Elderly, tall, articulate, he asked me why I desired to buy just that camera. I spoke about my collection, about the kilometers that I had walked to find the correct shop, and the right piece. While he was listening my words he opened the showcase, took the camera out, removed the back and put the Exakta in my hands. He waited while I checked it and I told him it was good for me. At that point he asked me to follow him downstairs. In a room under the shop there was his collection, many rare pieces displayed in long, illuminated showcase. He asked me to sign his visitor's book and to add a comment. He then gave me a little bronze (see McKweon 92/93, page 393) celebrating the centenary of his shop, estabilished by his great-uncle. He accompanied me back to the upper floor, compiled a regular invoice (I acquired a prism too at 275 FF) and he departed.
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 Le Fotosaga by Patrice-Hervé Pont |
I knew later, leafing through Fotosaga by Patrice Hervè Pont, that Mr Cipiere is the greatest expert in France. After this episode, tell me, which is the value of a camera? Is it right that I have paid less the camera from Cipiere than another, an almost equal one, I have found later on a stall of a little flea market? If instead it had cost double, would it not have been equally worth the trouble of buying it? Which would have been the right request - should we have spoken about money after the visit to his collection? Think of a dinner in a restaurant: how much does the quality of the service affect the bill? How many times, when the food and the eating were the same, did you find the same bill cheap or expensive? I mentioned Cipiere but I could speak about asking David Woodford of Jessop to acquire an Exakta Junior at a Christie's auction, and of his fax, when he told me that he had tought opportune not to acquire it, beacuse during the auction it had exceeded a reasonable price. I could speak about Vintage Cameras Ltd (Kirkdale): they sent me a fax to tell me that they had made a £25 discount for a small ding (on the eyepiece of a Olympus Pen FT) that I would not have seen until after delivery. I could speak of Jay O. Tepper too, who from the USA (always by fax, the most confortable medium for collectors) once communicated to me, in advance of his monthly catalogue from which he usually sells almost every item, that he had a Kine Exakta with the round magnifier. An act of courtesy, with very soft trading motivations (he would have sold it anyway), but so kind and pleasant. This list of praises must include Tierry Rebours by Nice (Rue de Lepante 18). When I was told by Piero Caramello, photographer in Vallecrosia near Bordighera, a few kilometers from France, who every so often tells me of an interesting piece, that in Nice there was a book on the Exakta, at the first opportunity, I went to buy it. Disappointment! They had had only few copies of it, and they had sold them all. My disappointment was evident. They asked me if I could wait for a few minutes - in the meantime I looked at their goods, among which I remember a rare Ihagee exposure meter (1958) that I forgot to acquire for the following reason - and a boy arrived with a copy of the book. Without asking how they had managed to find it, I began to leaf through it discovering immediately, with obvious enthusiasm, everything I had and everything I didn't have. It was what I needed, exactly what I had been looking for from a long time. I found just after that that one of the two authors, Clement Aguila, was living near the shop and when Thierry Rebours asked him if he had a copy of his book, he sent it immediately. The dealer decided to make a second call to Aguila to ask him if it was possible for him to receive me at home. It was almost seven p.m. I went immediately. The hospitality was exquisite. Within around three hours I viewed the entire collection, decidedly wider than the one reported on his book. From him I learned that a collection is made not only by cameras and by lenses, but by episodes and by meetings too, each of them making the purchase of the day quite unique. He enlarged of this when he told me he had entered in possession of the camera that he held in his hands in that moment. (If you look at "Short articles and letters to the Editor" in the second text by Klaus Rademaker you can find more details of this history) Some years before he was looking for an Exakta Junior. His friend agreed with him that whoever found it had to inform the other immediately. The much anticipated day arrived: the Junior was in Paris. Aguila: "Take it!". Friend: "I'd already have bought it, but you told me it is a VP, while the camera I found it is a 24x36!". Aguila continued to argue that the format was not for discussion, every advertisement of the epoch defined it clearly, he had already had handled one, the bibliography in his possession was clear...! Aguila told his friend to acquire it anyway. It arrived. It was a 24x36. Mint. Without sign of wear. Body number? Zerozero! A prototype that had never entered into production. Beyond the uniqueness of the item and beyond its obvious commercial value, how can its acquisition be separated from the path you took to achieve it? Each consideration helps me to reconstruct the paths of my collection: I remember that they had alerted me to the presence, in a village on the East coast, of an Exakta, a rather strange one, a little bigger than usual cameras I was accustomed to, a black one, without prism. From the description I understood it was a VP, that I had seen on Camera Antiquarius by Romano Fea, one of the few books I found on these years, full of auction prices. I went there on the following Saturday. I was told that the owner of the camera had changed his mind, and had decided not to sell it after all. I asked whether it was matter of price: I told them I'd meet him... they explained me that the camera had accompanied the couple concerned for around thirty years, and that after such a long time, they had entered a big crisis. At this point "he" had decided to sell some items, among them the camera, because they reminded him of better moments. But as the crisis passed, he hurried to cancel his decision. I asked if it was possible to see the Exakta, a B model with its case, in good condition, with a 2,8 Tessar. I wrote down the body number (I found it on the external ring) because I tought be useful in appraising the other VPs I 'd find in the future. Around six months later, in the catalogue of Fotocamera, there was an Exakta B with case. I ordered it by phone. It arrived by mail a few days later. I remembered the advice of Bruno Palazzi: "..continue to see, to touch, to buy, until you are familiar with the different models, you can recognize them, you can look for the differences..". I felt an expert collector. It was possible for me easily to open the waist level finder, the elicoidal screw lens unwound up to the infinity catch, then continued up to the shorter distances, the winding needed two movements of the lever, the slow speed dial loaded with expected pressure, the interchangeable lens was a Tessar 2,8, all identical to the model I had handled some months before (I started to feel me an expert!). It was indeed identical, and I discovered some hours later, so was the body number! Useless to wonder at this point if the couple was still in love! In order to reduce the exceptionality of this tale it is useful to remember that it happened about ten years ago, when many shops, offering new cameras, accepted used items in part exchange, usually difficult to sell during a period when people were looking for everyday more sophisticated cameras. In those same years Fotocamera was present at the Sicof (annual Italian specialized exposition) from which it was easy to know that used cameras could have an important buyer. Except Fotocamera in those years in the north of Italy there was only one other important dealer (La bottega dell'Usato). I remember him because I bought by phone a Varex that was then consigned to a hotel in Bolzano where every so often I stayed. What would I do to find what I am looking for? If I did not have a system, how could I tell you episodes that follow? Image you are in Berlin, and that you can stay there four or five days. You have some time between meetings and you have already visited the flea market which is situated in an old overhead Metro station, and the trains permanently parked within it. You have not yet found anything of interest. In Berlin? In the capital of the country where your beloved Exaktas had been made? Failing to find anything means to have looked in the wrong places. |
 Picetti's 66 |
With this convinction I decided to abandon the Kudamm and I took immediately a cross road which inspired in me a certain faith. Behind a big, very big, store there was a district of houses two or three flats high, not in good condition, with shops with showcases in painted scraped wood. My nose functions very well in such cases. Two shops in fact, one after the other, of different owners, were there in front of me, with the showcases full of used cameras. Among them, in the middle, recognizable even from far away, two glorious vertical 66 with their beautiful engraved front plates. I already possessed one of them, acquired by Gigi Picetti, the same Mr Picetti who (I was there) acquired at £2.00 (the year was 1978) an "accessory" abandoned on a shelf in a small shop in the underpass of Portello plaza in Genoa. It was simply the body of a Leica Reporter in mint conditions. Some months after it was sold at £800.00 in order to be resold immediately at £2900.00. I already possessed a post-war 66, but as I knew the finite production, I was ready to any sacrifice. The value, said the dealer, would have been about £350.00 (translating DM into £). It would have been £350.00 if he had any intention of selling them, an intention that he did not have! We spoke for some time, and I went away feeling sorry for myself. I only remembered when I got home that I had forgotten to buy (the year was 1985) an Exakta VX500 in perfect conditions at £30.00. A day later, in a third shop I found near the Kempinski, the hotel where I had my room, I found an Exa at less than £20.00! Now here is a consideration. How can you locate the right shops in a city that do not know? The first answer is that you cannot always locate them, but when you do, they are always in similar locations. Usually they are not on the main traffic routes, or in the streets of fashion shops, although they are often quite close by, in the parallel or in the cross roads where there is the artisan, the herbalist, the small antiquary, on the edge of central zones. Otherwise one must look for other factors. Almost always (it coud be a coincidence) the "right" shop is near a fruiterer or an old grocery store, with the shelves full of cleansers, a pair of cheap jewellers, with the showcases full of tawdry items. These are the streets where the leases of the shops are not expensive, where only specialist activities can survive, the unique activities so unique that they attract (out of the popular streets) a particular type of people, those who can become faithful customers. Using these criteria, I was able to find the right shop in Madrid, too, in Calle Acuna 3. The spirit of the area coincided with what is written above. A few hundred metres from a crossroad with the Serrano, the biggest shopping street in the Spanish capital city, near to a grocer and next to a fruiterer, in a showcase lit by a unique lamp, there were two Varex and an Exa 1b. Among old computers, old reel to reel tape recorders, old radios, old trash of every kind, there were two greedy old persons. I bought an anular flash RB1 at 20.000 pesetas (around £100 ); I did not have it and this was the only reason why I decided to acquire it at that price. |
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In Marseille, following the path I have already described, I arrived in Rue des Trois Rois, at Antic Photo in the old town, among the antiquaries of the "white" little district near the Opera House. There I found a book written by Feininger, "Les Horizons Noveaux de la Photographie avec l'Exacta", printed by the French Distributor of Ihagee and Rectaflex, Telòs. In London, leaving the Finchley station in order to seek direction, I sniffed the air and after few meters I found Campkin's shop. That time I was in a hurry, but afterwards I returned several times and I bought a lot of things. Three years ago there were no shop because they were building something new. It's a pity! Sometimes the situation changes, for example in the tourist villages or in the small towns. Here the shop (it is more difficult to find the right one) is that of an optician who also sells photographic items. In this case too there is usually the possibility of changing old cameras so the used ones, exposed in a showcase, attract other used cameras until, in some cases, this becomes a parallel sector. There the collector finds something or he can leave there something else to sell. I found a 6" Tele-Dallon for the Exakta B (I paid it 700 FF, around 90 pounds, with the cash receipt by "Cine Hito" in Juan Les Pins) and a first type prism (around £11) in Bolzano, North Italy near Austria. It is possible to find this last kind of shops in some big cities. They are on large plazas or under the porticos, near the subway stations or where a lot of bus lines cross each other. They have ample internal spaces dedicated to the different sectors and an entire showcase, inside or outside, dedicated to the used cameras. Usually there is no distiction among used and collector's cameras but if among the things there is something interesting, you can usually find it. At Carnicelli, near the Dome of Florence, more than ten years ago I bought two Exas, version 1 and version 6, at £40 each. At Giovenzana, in Milan, Largo Augusto, I found in 1982 a shoe box containing a Varex VX, a Novoflex bellows, a mint Contameter 1341, all at £80. Later I sold for £40 the Contameter to an important collector who thanked me many times for the quality of the item. This advantageous purchase has gone some way to balance other purchases, less happy than this one.
To the third part ...or to the index  In Italiano, per favore! Thanks to Peter Longden. He had the patience to translate my text from "my" English. |