I’ve always been a bit wary of buying stuff off eBay, something about it just always put me off. My recent acquisition of a old camera though is forcing me to give it a go.
I wanted a few things for the camera, a few more lenses I find 50mm a bit claustrophobic, it needs a leather case and some other bits. So I’ve been looking at eBay again. This past weekend I did my first purchase of a Schneider-Kreuznach Retina Tele-Xenar 135mm F4 Telephoto Compur Lens for my Retina IV camera, the item was a Buy Now and I was happy with the price so I got it.
The lens arrived this morning and is as good as new I’m very impressed with it, here is a shot of my camera with the lens fitted. It came in its original protective case and everything, not bad for GBP24!
I’ve also bought another Retina camera, this one is a Retina S, very similar to the IV but it includes 35mm and 85mm lenses, bags, kit bag and all the goodies even some thirdparty book on the Retina cameras. Still waiting for this one to arrive though.
The second auction wasn’t a Buy Now so I had to way up if I wanted to actually try and bid on it or not, in the end I decided to go with one of the Sniper services. I searched around, there are tons out there with payment options going from monthly, yearly, per item etc it was hard to choose which one. I eventually came across Gixen, it’s a free Sniper run by someone who is passionate about doing so and I felt happy to use his service rather than some company I guess it’s years of using Open Source. Anyway in the end I got the item after the sniper did it’s bid, now I am just waiting for the knock on the door.
