# estate sale chrome



## compur (Jun 21, 2009)

I found this little Voigtlander Vitomatic IIa at an estate sale for $20
last weekend.

This little chrome beauty weighs in at almost 2 pounds and is finished
like a piece of jewelry. There's hardly a mark on it.  The lens is the
Skopar 2.8

This model has a rangefinder, meter and speeds to 1/500 -- all are working.
When I first got it the slow speeds were somewhat sticky but a little
cleaning work on the shutter blades got them working fine. 

They don't make 'em like this anymore.


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## newfette (Jun 21, 2009)

oh wow thats pretty!!


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## manaheim (Jun 21, 2009)

Wow what a neat looking little camera.  I have noooooo concept on these older bodies, but that thing just  looks cool.


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## terri (Jun 22, 2009)

Mitica's gonna start twitching when he sees this. 

Outstanding find! You need to drop a roll into that bad boy and see what that lens gives you. 

Estate sale, eh? Clearly this was once someone's pride and joy. :love:


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## compur (Jun 22, 2009)

*Thanks for the comments, folks. *



terri said:


> Estate sale, eh? Clearly this was once someone's pride and joy. :love:



Actually, there were quite a few vintage cameras at this sale but most
were priced too high for my cheapskate standards. This is not uncommon
at estate sales. They often price vintage cameras too high, especially if
they have "Made in Germany" on them. But, if you know the market you
can sometimes nab some good bargains.

Voigtlander made lots of different models with "Vito..." in their names so
it can be confusing. The "Vitomatic IIa" was one of the best, having a
rangefinder and meter and manual exposure control.

The Vito*matic* part of the name is a bit of a misnomer on this model since
there's nothing really automatic about it -- at least not by today's
standards. You adjust aperture and shutter speed until the meter needle
display lines up properly, then focus via the rangefinder and shoot.

That's the way I like it.


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## dinodan (Jun 22, 2009)

Beautiful, and what a bargain! Is that basically the same lens as the Color-Skopar X 1:2.8/50 that fits my Bessamatic? It's presumably the same vintage (late 50s - early 60s).


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## compur (Jun 22, 2009)

dinodan said:


> Beautiful, and what a bargain! Is that basically the same lens as the Color-Skopar X 1:2.8/50 that fits my Bessamatic? It's presumably the same vintage (late 50s - early 60s).



Yes, I believe it is the same lens optically. 

The Vitomatic IIa was also available with an f/2 Ultron lens which would
be a super prize if you can find one.


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## Mitica100 (Jun 23, 2009)

terri said:


> Mitica's gonna start twitching when he sees this.
> 
> Outstanding find! You need to drop a roll into that bad boy and see what that lens gives you.
> 
> Estate sale, eh? Clearly this was once someone's pride and joy. :love:



Nah, Terri...  I had a few of these in my hands. I even repaired one, all the way to the bone, made a good camera from two bad ones.

The monster is a great performer, the Skopar is one of my fave pieces of glass.

Good find though! :thumbup:


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## Mitica100 (Jun 23, 2009)

Someone is going to 'donate' to me a nice lens. A Rokkor 85/1.7 MD for Minolta manual focus SLRs. The MD is the rarer variation, there were the 85/1.7 MC, then the 85/1.7 MD, then the 85/2 MF. It seems the MD had the shortest run of all of them, being that it was quickly replaced by the 85/2 MF. Beautiful lens, great bokeh.

I might sell it...


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