eBay gambles

Well I’d been riding my luck for a quite a while on eBay with my trawling of the untested camera gear listings. 4 or 5 cameras on the trot had bounced into life with the magic white vinegar treatment. But then my luck ran out!

This looks like someone’s been in here already!

I’d snagged a mint copy of the stunning Minolta Riva Zoom 75W for £5 that had been listed as “spares or repairs”. There was nothing wrong with it and I just had to fit a new battery to bring this beautiful little compact film camera back to life. I ran a couple of rolls of HP5 through it and loved the results before selling it on for £50, again via eBay.

£9 plus postage. Sold 12 months later for £50. Good old eBay

The sleekest of design lines.

Mortehoe village

And then a Ricoh FF9 sold as untested for £3 came bounding across my blue mat, again via eBay. This one just needed a new battery!

Ricoh FF9

Just needed a new battery

Original case

I was well into these compact film cameras now and achieved a hat trick of amazing finds with a rare copy of the Pentax PC35AF-M Quartz date for £14.95. This one came complete with original strap and case and did need a little bit of TLC to get it going but nothing more than cleaning the battery terminals.

Stunning good looks

It’s that black and red combo

Pure eighties chic

And then it all went wrong! I’d followed my usual approach. Look for non camera people -“not sure if it works or not”, “discovered in attic”’, “late relatives gear” etc etc but I should have studied the pictures more closely!

When my much sought after Canon 35AF ML arrived the sellers communication had been spot on. Lots of pre arrival chat. Was that a sign?! Well packaged but as soon as I looked more closely I noticed some strange residue around the shutter button. The button also looked depressed and now so was I.