I inherited an old Minolta purchased in Okinawa in 1946. Also many Canon lenses of all sizes. I was told by a camera repair shop that the shutter cloth had deteriorated and could not be repaired but I'm wondering if I could still use the lenses and if so, on what? They screw onto the camera. A local shop offered me $300 for the camera and all the lenses (5 in total) but if there's anyway to use this equipment, I'd like to as it belonged to my father.

-- lisa zack (lzack@ipns.com), January 18, 2000

Answers

Steady,

Don't sell to the local dude. Something is suspicious about the formula: "Can't be fixed" + "I'll give you $300". I have seen old Nikon gear in nice condition go for very high prices on ebay. Perhaps ebay would be a good start for your research. Handle the equipment with care, take your time researching it's worth, sell to a collector, reinvest the $$$ in modern gear, and bank the rest.

Good Luck!

-- Eric James (eajames@u.washington.edu), January 18, 2000.

Hi Liza, I agree with Eric; replacing the shutter cloth normally should not be too difficult for an experienced camera repairer. Get recommendations of camera repairers by posting a question either here or in the photo.net Q&A forum. Like Eric said, some vintage cameras may worth a small fortunate, so don't sell your gear off too hastily. You might get more info on repair and value of your equipment if you let us know the model name of your Minolta and the focal length/max. aperture of your Canon lenses.

-- Hoyin Lee (leehoyin@hutchcity.com), January 19, 2000.

Lisa, I may be very late in contributing to this question - but, I owned a Minolta Model II rangefinder of similar vintage and the cloth shutter can be fixed and definately replaced. Also - a Minolta of that vintage is very valuable - hold on to that camera!

David Spero Peligro

-- David Spero Peligro (davidspero68@hotmail.com), November 20, 2000.

Lisa,

I personally would not sell the camera, not with the family history. What I've got is a 1952 Minolta Model F, my cloth shutters have small pinholes in them so I brought it to a camera repair man that all my antique camera freinds told me to go to. He was a bit blown away because my camera is a lieca copy just like the early cannon was, not to mention other cameras, therefore he figured he would have no problem replacing the curtains, boy was he wrong! It turns out, at least by what he said, the Minolta is a completely different animal. There is no doubt in my mind that there is someone (probably many people)out there who could fix it, it's just a matter of finding them. As far as the lens' go if it is like mine( a lieca copy) they will screw onto a lieca camera, and probably others too. as far as the value of the camera goes, condition is everything, the McKeown's camera book places it's value between $300.00 to $900.00. Hope this helps with your dilema, and just so folks know my minolta is for sale.

-- Scott Chantland (scatman1111@hotmail.com), May 09, 2001.