new source for old stuff

Its seems like a lot of people think their old instamatics are worth tons of money... but just as I was about to give up I spotted and snagged a Fed 4 for $14. Even if the body doesn't work the industar lens should be worth it.
Hopefully more people will use this site so more interesting cameras will show up.

Everything is overpriced I think. I saw an Olympus AF 10 Super compact for 46$ (!) and I got one a week ago for 8 GBP on eBay.co.uk (a rare red version too, regular black ones start at 1-2 GBP). All "serious" stuff was too expensive, I saw some Canon AE-1 bodies for 299$ !

if in the US. check out shopgoodwill.com. The downside of this site is that you buy as is.

I've seen some pretty expensive stuff on Shopgoodwill. Expensive and probably worth it. Nikon S rangefinders, Barnack Leicas, M Leicas. They started out not knowing anything about cameras, but as the months and years have gone by, i notice some of the more saaavy ones give very apt descriptions. But, you are correct, you buy a pig in a poke, just by looking at poorly done pictures. And, i think their shipping and handling can get a little pricey too.

Oh dear, shopgoodwill. I've watched this place for a while now, and don't like it at all. The items are not exactly "worth it" since you can't tell what operating condition they're in. All the good descriptions are mostly cut-and-paste from elsewhere and the best evaluation they seem to give is "shutter works" for the camera (no mention of seals, ever), and I doubt they'd notice a small spot of fungus deep in a lens. That's for the best listers, some give very rudimentary information. None will have good photos of the items, some lenses they list won't even have a picture of the mount end, so if you see a Vivitar, you won't know what camera it'll mount to. Also a few of the high-end items will get bid up stratospherically and then that same item will appear again later (a Nikon S3 with a 50/1.4 was the most notorious - from $3K+ in the first auction down to half that in the second), a sort of action that makes me wonder if someone is shill bidding. I'd suggest approaching that site with caution and note that you likely won't get a much better deal than ebay.

I've done way, way better at the brick-and-mortar Goodwill stores.

I checked out ecrater and found most of it to be rather expensive. At least, fleabay as buyer protection of sorts?

Dave, nice grab on the FED. Glad somebody found something good because I agree with Christos and Starvy...the stuff is way overpriced for the most part. There may be a gem here and there, like you FED, but it a needle in a haystack type of thing. I must admit to not having purchased anything from the site but I do check it from time to time. I mainly mentioned it here since I figured knowledge is power and its always good to have another venue to buy and sell in.

As for shopgoodwill, Mark sums it up perfectly. How many times have we had that very conversation thru email Mark? :)

Yeah, I find it entertaining to watch the trainwrecks there.

For the others here, the best was a listing for a Nikon MD-12 motor drive of which I bought a perfectly working BGN one from KEH for $14, and another example sold online at shopgoodwill for $42. You might think it was just bidding fever overcoming good sense, but the listing included the little fact that the battery holder suffered from corrosion. To say I didn't understand that auction is an understatement.

David, thanks for the link - that's one I wasn't familiar with.

Another site I didn't see mentioned above is Etsy.com. I find that it has a surprisingly good selection (maybe it is older than ecrater?). Etsy ads often include larger and higher resolution pictures (just click on the smaller images and they will go full-size if available), and typically better informed descriptions than some of the sites mentioned above. On the downside, the prices seem to be somewhat elevated too.

One curious thing on Etsy is the plethora of camera-related art objects. There are photos, paintings, and sculptures of cameras, and images of almost any imaginable old camera, to be found on t-shirts, pillows, buttons, jewelry... you name it! Strange, but kinda cool too. :)

Jeff