Aladdins Cave

[Valiant]

I was going through my attic and came across some of my old manual cameras. All still seem to work and in very good nick. Oldskool retro goodness.

I have:

Asahi Pentax K1000
Practika MTL 3
Nikon FM10

Question is what to do with them? Don't really do much photography anymore, seems a shame to box them back up and forget about them. Are they worth anything these days?

I guess the other thing is I could stick them on the mantelpiece as retro bling or something.

Also found a box of Ilford film, does it have a use by date? I imagine they are at least 10 years old.

[Pickled Onion]

Film gets slower and slightly less contrasty with age. With monochrome it would still be usable at 10 years old but not perfect. Colour is a different story because the layers will age at different rates so throw the colour balance right out.

I'm no camera buff, but all three were student-level cameras. The pentax and the nikon are worth upwards of 50 quid each, depending what lenses you've got. The praktica is as good as worthless, though at the time they were a decent usable alternative for anyone who couldn't stretch to a Japanese brand. In fact it probably cost more new than the Nikon and is better built - the FM-10 was a cheaply made "badged" camera that sold on the name.

[AndyK]

All three will sell on EBay quite easily, particularly the Pentax which is the more sought after of the three. A lot of people are taking up film use at the moment.
If you have extra lenses and accessories, after including a 50mm with each body, sell them separately to maximize takings.

[Valiant]

They all have one or two lenses somewhere and cases.

[Biggsy]

Use eBay's Advanced Search with "Completed Listings" ticked to see what those models have fetched recently.

[Valiant]

Hmm seems I can make roughly £300 from them. Still seems a shame to flog them.

[AndyK]

Hmm seems I can make roughly £300 from them. Still seems a shame to flog them.

Then don't. Use them.

[Valiant]