Blog 17 - Treasure or Junk? The Gamble of Old Camera Bundle - A Vintage Photography Blog

Every so often you stumble across a listing that makes no sense to anyone outside of the hobby. A cardboard box of battered cameras described as “for parts or spares,” a pile of metal and dust with missing covers and fogged glass. Most people would scroll past, but for me it sparks something, a quiet voice saying maybe, just maybe, there’s a gem hidden in there.

Not long ago I gave in to that voice and spent £33 on a bundle that could have gone either way. To be fair, I knew it wasn’t going to deliver a Leica wrapped in tissue paper, but the fun is in the gamble. What arrived looked every bit as sketchy as you’d expect. Inside were a Voigtländer Vito CLR and a Zeiss Jena Werra Mat, both a little rough but full of character, along with a handful of other odds and ends. The Vito even still had a roll of 35mm film loaded, which now joins my little collection of “cameras I’ve bought that still had film in them.” There’s always a bit of excitement in that find, and also a sense of unease about the potential contents. What forgotten moments are sitting there on that strip of celluloid? Someone’s holiday? A child’s birthday? Half a roll of blurry car parks? You never know, and part of me almost doesn’t want to.

When the box turned up, I lined them up on the table, put the kettle on for a mug of tea, and started working through them. Shutter tests, winding levers, aperture checks. Some resisted, some surprised me, some were stiff but not beyond saving. Very few of the cameras I’ve picked up over the years have turned out to be actual junk. Most of them just need a bit of TLC, a careful clean, maybe a dab of watchmakers oil to get them moving again. Old cameras tend to want to work. They’ve lasted decades already, and often they only need a little coaxing to come back to life.

The Specifics: Vito CLR and Werra Mat

The Voigtländer Vito CLR is a handsome little rangefinder, compact but solid, with its coupled meter window and a lens that still looks ready for work. When I picked it up, I could almost imagine it being slipped into a coat pocket for a European city break in the 1970s, pulled out to capture market stalls or a train station clock. The shutter still clicked, the focus ring was stiff but usable, and the loaded film gave it that extra touch of mystery.

The Zeiss Jena Werra Mat is another oddity altogether, and a complete psychopath of a camera. Its film advance is a “lever” built into the lens ring mount, the lens cap is a strange two-stage contraption, and the whole thing loads from the bottom, with controls and wheels scattered across the underside as if someone built it in reverse. It’s stubborn, eccentric, and utterly fascinating, exactly the kind of camera that makes you shake your head and grin at the same time.

The Wider Temptation

That’s part of the reason job lots appeal. Every camera tells a slightly different story before you even think about loading film. One bundle can contain workhorses, experiments, curiosities, and outright failures. Some have been stored in attics for decades, others passed down and then discarded. The randomness is the point.

And these listings are everywhere once you start looking. On eBay, Facebook Marketplace, Vinted bundles of ten, twenty, thirty cameras, often described as “for spares or repairs.” Most of the time the photos are out of focus, the descriptions vague. You’re gambling on blurred thumbnails and half-truths. Sometimes you win, sometimes you get exactly what you expected: a box of problems.

I spotted one recently that perfectly sums it up: £99.99 for more than twenty cameras, lined up neatly like a scrapyard fashion shoot. Fujica, Zenit, Yashica, Konica, Cosina, Chinon, Minolta. No lenses, plenty of missing covers, scratches, dents, peeling leather. To most people, landfill. To me, potential. I like Fujicas. I want a Yashica. I also want a Chinon and a Minolta. Rows of shells that might still have some life left in them, or at least enough to justify an evening of tinkering.

And then there are the real mysteries, like the 99p auction I stumbled across this week, a tangled heap of bodies, lenses, and straps piled into a box, photographed like someone was in a rush to clear the attic. No description worth reading, no guarantees, no hint of what works or what doesn’t. At 99p, it’s both a bargain and a warning. You could be buying hidden treasure, or just a pile of parts that need more time than you’ll ever give them.

The Cost of Curiosity

The real barrier isn’t the condition of the cameras, it’s the cost of film and developing. Current reel prices and lab fees make it hard to justify loading each one just to see what happens. Each experiment can set me back £15–£20 before I even know if the shutter’s accurate or the focus aligns.

Which is why, if Emma’s reading this, this is exactly why I need to buy a darkroom. See, it’s not another indulgence. It’s a sensible financial decision. If I just invest a little more, I’ll save us money in the long run. That’s how this works, right?

The Ritual of Testing

Even without film, the process of testing has its own rhythm. Pick up a body. Check the shutter. Wind the lever. Peer through the viewfinder. Does the meter needle twitch? Does the aperture open and close? Every little success feels like progress. Every failure is just a note on the list.

I’ve started keeping that list properly now: which cameras I’ve used, what quirks they have, what still needs attention. The Zeiss Ikonta, for example, with its brush seals scraping neat lines through the emulsion. Or the Fujica ST701 that needs a meter workaround. Each camera is a small project in its own right, and seeing them ticked off gives the whole collection a sense of movement.

A 42-Year-Old Still Holding Its Own

A week or so after that £33 bundle landed, I took the Fujica ST901 out for a spin at a rugby match with a roll of Ilford XP2 400 loaded. It’s a 42-year-old camera that has no business still working as smoothly as it does, but there I was stood on the touchline firing off frames during the warm-up before I had to get back to the day job. The photos came back grainier than I expected and a bit soft in places, but the simple fact that a camera as old as me can still hold its own at a modern event is something worth applauding. It’s a reminder that these machines were built to last, and with a bit of care and attention they’ll keep clicking away long after the latest digital body has been replaced three times over.

I’m also still waiting on a set of scans from a roll of 120 medium format I shot at the arts event two or three weeks ago. The lab’s turnaround feels like an eternity when you’re itching to see the results, but that’s part of the rhythm of film photography. The waiting stretches things out and makes the eventual arrival of the images feel like an event in itself.

More Than Just Cameras

My £33 job lot turned out to be a mix. A couple of solid bodies, some curiosities, and a few that might never take another roll. But even the ones that will only ever sit on a shelf gave me something valuable. An evening lost in the sort of tinkering that other people find in their allotments, or in following their football team, or in chasing Pokémon around town with their phones. For me, it’s old cameras. That’s the release.

Handling something mechanical, something tactile, forces me to slow down. It’s a counterweight to days that are fast, pressured, and often overwhelming. Men don’t often talk about needing that kind of balance, but the truth is we should. Men’s mental health is still brushed off too easily, and too often we fill the gaps with doom scrolling, endless emails, and the churn of work. Picking up a camera that’s been silent for years and coaxing it back into life might not sound like much, but it’s grounding. It’s a way of paying attention to the small details and finding calm in repetition.

The Hobby Room Problem

Which brings me back to space. Shelves are filling, drawers are stacking, and the hobby room is slowly shifting in my direction. I tell Emma she’s got more space now for her things, but really it’s me edging in with another camera bag, another box of reels, another shelf of manuals. Slowly but surely, the balance is tilting.

Job lots aren’t about treasure or junk alone. They’re about time, patience, curiosity, and, let’s be honest, shelf space.

As for that £99.99 eBay lot lined up like a scrapyard fashion shoot, and the 99p mystery pile with no description at all? I haven’t clicked “buy now.” Yet.