Boggled...

[ffutures]

I've been selling off some of my old photographic kit on eBay. Today I thought I'd put up one of the SLRs, a Canon AE1 with an F 1.4 lens, data back, and winder. None of it particularly remarkable kit, all reasonably nice condition but nothing truly special.

So I set the minimum bid low and the "buy-it-now" price to the maximum I thought I was likely to get, sixty pounds plus postage.

It sold in twelve minutes, and the buyer paid before I even had time to send an invoice. So either I got that one seriously wrong or the buyer did, and knowing my luck it was probably me.

Never mind - it's sixty pounds in my pocket, and I really wasn't using it. But it'd be nice to know why that went so fast, when there's plenty of (to my eye) comparable kit that's just sitting there, including at least a dozen other AE-1s. Here's the description, for those in the know does anything look rare or unusual? The lens is probably the nicest part.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=7519766407&ssPageName=STRK:MESO:IT

Comments

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

I was led to believe that the going rate for them was fairly low - as you can see I may have guessed too low. While it would have been nice to keep it, my main use for 35mm is scientific photography, and the F1 (especially with the jumbo "sports finder" prism that does eye level and waist level photos and doesn't mirror-image either view) is simply a much better camera for that.

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

Oh, sorry about the camera porn there... the F1 sports finder is a wonderful piece of kit, and I would LOVE to have equivalent facilities in an interchangeable-lens digital SLR. Maybe one of these days the Digital Film guys will get their act together, but I doubt it...

[dsample.livejournal.com]

I took a look at eBay to see what other AE-1s were going for, and it looks like you got a pretty good price for yours.