# Camera show find



## compur (Dec 15, 2008)

I was at a camera show on Sunday and a seller had a box of "camera junk"
that he offered to me for $5. I glanced in the box and saw some vintage
stuff that I thought I could use for parts and bought it without looking
at it further.

When I got home I found this at the bottom of the box:









It's a Yashica Pentamatic, the first 35mm SLR made by Yashica.  It has a
bayonet lens mount unique to the Pentamatic cameras and 6 or 7 lenses
were made for it (that I know of) from 35mm to 250mm. It's definitely a
collectible camera and the lenses are pretty scarce (in the USA anyway).
It needed a little cleaning up but it works perfectly and looks nearly mint
now.  Yashica also made adapters to allow mounting M42 screw mount
lenses and Exakta lenses to this camera.

Yashica made 2 more Pentamatic models (Pentamatic II and S) and then
switched to using the M42 screw-mount for a while until finally switching
again to the Yashica/Contax bayonet which is not the same as the
earlier Pentamatic bayonet mount.

So, I guess I'm gonna have to track down some more lenses for it now.


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## jlykins (Dec 15, 2008)

That's awesome! Great find.


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## alexkerhead (Dec 15, 2008)

Nice find!


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## usayit (Dec 15, 2008)

Great find!!  I always liked the shutter placement at the front of the camera rather than on the top plate.


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## MikeBcos (Dec 15, 2008)

Nice!


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## Mitica100 (Dec 15, 2008)

Whoa!!!  Congrats dude! That's a good collectible camera to find! I'm freakin' jealous...


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