January 9, 2017
#221
Gentle reader,
Is there such a thing as fate? I do not know, I was born and raised as a Presbyterian, my dad was a Minister and later taught at several Seminaries. Presbyterians believe in Predestination: Which in short means everything happens for a reason. I won't go into the specifics, you can Google it if you are curious.
However, while attending a camera show (man do I miss those!) I asked an elderly man behind one table how much he wanted for his Pentax K1000. "What's the tag say?" "$80." Then that's what I want." I bought it and walking away was thinking, "Geez, what a grouch."
A few weeks later, while at Salvation Army's big store in Northern Virginia, the kids and I were looking around and I had a couple cameras in my arms. Behind me, I heard someone ask, "Do you collect cameras?" I turned around and the man smiling at me seemed familiar. "Yes, I've just started to." He had a shopping cart with twenty or more cameras in it, "Well, then you're going to want this one, and this one..." As he handed me camera after camera. "Wait, I only have so much money!"
In case you haven't guessed that was the "Grouch" camera seller. It turns out he and his wife volunteered at that Salvation Army which was the central one for Northern Virginia. All donations were trucked there from the various stores and sorted, checked out, priced and distributed to the main store and others in the group. He gave me his card and wrote down his home number on it.
His name was Mervin "Bill" Arps. A retired U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel. He and his wife volunteered at the store. He checked out every camera, lens, projector, and anything having to do with imaging that was donated. She specialized in books and did the same with rare ones.
"Colonel Bill" as he liked to be called, started in the Army as most do, a Private. I can't tell you much about his Service but do remember this. He loved photography and unlike what usually happens when you have an interest in something, the Army actually made him:
He proved proficient and rose through the ranks, eventually became a "Mustang" an enlisted person chosen to be a Commissioned Officer. He told me he was an Advisor in Viet Nam in the 1950's Yes, I said 1950's. Here's a photo, possibly taken there. I never knew U.S. military uniforms included shorts. The Brits, certainly.
I wish in my chosen career, car mechanic for 9 years then 35 years working on subway cars in very hot shops, that they'd let US wear shorts!
Back to Colonel Bill, he eventually married and began camera collecting. He retired as a Lieutenant Colonel. I did not know his first wife, nor her fate. The wife he had during our friendship was named Suzanne. Those friends of Bill (and I) often wondered how the poor man had chosen such a, how shall I put this, different, type of person to marry. We all shared the opinion that he was as they wrote in the Bible about some wives, "Long Suffering" in his marriage.
This photo is quite old since the Army dropped khaki uniforms a LONG time ago. Since the photo is black and white, it's hard to tell what the ribbons are. One, however he received four times. So he was doing things right.
The house they lived in was not the one he originally set up his collection. It did meet his criteria in having a large unfinished basement to house his massive collection.
Below are two images taken with a camera of his that uses 70mm wide Medium Format film and rotates while making a continuous image of it's surroundings. I do not know the name of the camera. These are contact prints which I have enlarged.
As I write this on my 23" wide monitor, this image and the one below are 5" tall which is TWICE the width of the film. It is almost 17" wide on my screen. Sadly, it is much smaller in the blog.
Above is his collection, then, in the old house. Aside from the people, all fellow collectors, and lenses there are NO curved objects or surfaces in the photo. All cabinets and walls are flat. This is the result of the extreme ability of this camera.
Take a close look at the gentleman on the left and scan across the image, left to right. See? The same man is also on the RIGHT edge of the photo! This group is at one of the Camera Collector's or Washington, D.C. Area, or whatever the name of their club was, meeting. Colonel Bill is forth from the RIGHT in a plaid (the correct term is TARTAN) shirt. A PLAID is the Celtic/Gaelic name for the BLANKET that Scots wore over one shoulder in traditional Scottish clothing. Some of the fellows seen in the first photo are seen in this one too.
Colonel Bill was more than my friend and Camera collecting mentor, he was sort of a father to me. My own was in California and was more than physically distant. He was a good Minister, but not so good at being a dad. Bill and I talked about all kinds of things. I learned a tremendous amount of camera information from him and he told me about adventurous visits to foreign lands. Visits to the HUGE camera shows in Germany and other European countries. He took me (he drove his ancient Subaru wagon) to a camera club meeting and I met his buddies. Scariest ride I've ever been on. We agreed that I'd drive from then on. VERY nice bunch of men. One went through the Linhof lens of my 4X5 camera for me and got it working perfectly. I went with him to camera shows and helped him out with all involved in those endeavors.
It was a two way street. He learned from me too. Being many years older than I, he and his wife had no computer of any kind. So, he came over to our place and I taught him about computers, introduced him to the Internet and eBay. Soon, they bought a PC from Salvation Army and I helped him set it up. I taught his wife too and she bought a new laptop.
Yes, those were the days of beige computers, dot-matrix printers and dial-up Internet service. Here he is in the basement typing up a list of cameras that I'm taking home to sell for him on eBay. He once told me, "I read your descriptions on eBay and I want to buy the camera. And it's MY camera!" Quite a compliment.
My wife is the most amazing, giving and different person I've ever known. She bought me my first, and second, and possibly my third, digital cameras. The first, was a Fuji Finepix with 1.3 megapixels. She bought it specifically so I could sell things on eBay. At first, I posted no photos. Then I decided to take photos, get them developed and, I can't recall how I did this, this was 1998, used those photos on eBay. But that got expensive. Having that and a later 6.3 megapixel Fuji made a world of difference. I went through two of those Fuji cameras and have made hundreds of thousands of digital images for eBay sales.
I could not give you an exact count of how many cameras Bill had, at least those that I sold for him I can as I still have the printouts, but the collection was less than it's former glory as seen in the collection photo above. He'd sold off the more valuable ones to finance the trips his wife insisted they go on. But it was at least 4000 cameras, way more than that many lenses, meters, rangefinders, tripods, camera bags, cases, projectors, just about anything and everything that had to do with cameras, even diecast cars with film company names on them.
The bottom row are mine. I have loved cars all my life and Pixar's movie Cars was so well done. My daughter bought me that complete set from the first film. Like her mother, she is an amazing woman.
The cabinet above, Bill made and as the label at the top reads, held EVERY Kodak Instamatic camera made. I sold the collection as a lot, but the buyer did not want the cabinet. It is now full of diecast and plastic model cars of various scales. But then, these were Bill's cars and trucks. All found new homes via eBay.
He was very organized and obtained all kinds of cabinets, metal chests of drawers and big lockers, display cabinets and other storage devices. They had a large house and the entire basement and most of the space in their garage held camera and related items. Bill was adept at repairing them too and had all kinds of tools to do so.
Below is what my home office looked like in the midst of cataloging, testing, cleaning, photographing, typing up, and listing on eBay the multiple thousands of items from his collection.
We have a large folding table (above and below) that was invaluable in this process. That wall is now behind me and the CameraLock panels are long gone as the collection is a tiny percentage of what it once was.
Monkey was that cat's name. He was a few weeks old when on a VERY cold day, a man with a long beard came up to me at work and asked, "Are you the cat man?" He told me he found a kitten in the (rail) yard and looked for it's mother to no avail. I looked at his hands and asked, "Where is it?" He raised his beard and there the tiny thing clung to his shirt. I remembered I had a packet of tuna in my drawer, so poured some on a paper plate and that kitten made a bee-line for it and started eating voraciously. He was about eight weeks old. We took him to the vet the next day, I showed him a tiny puppy and he hissed at it! "You are eight weeks old, how can you know anything about dongs?" He never did tell me.
These fruit trays were perfect for holding plenty of cameras and we put them to good use. Bill was delighted because he was making multiple tens of thousands of dollars and not having to do anything like camera shows for it. I charged him ten per cent plus expenses. A bargain for all the work I did. But I got the pick of cameras in equal exchange too. It was one of the most satisfying and enjoyable experiences of my life. I was still employed full time. When I think about it now, I wonder how I managed.
Colonel Bill had Parkinson's Disease and as time went by it got worse. But all was not bad. Thanks to my eBay endeavors, I made friends online and learned about the IDCC. Internet Directory of Camera Collectors. One friend I made was in Tokyo, Tommy is what he liked to be called. I told him of Bill's vast collection and put him in touch. He flew to D.C. and I picked him up at the airport. I took him home and had prearranged for Bill and Suzanne to come over. Below are shots from that get together.
I've arranged the photos below as they sat in our living room, left to right: Suzanne, Bill and "Tommy from Tokyo" as I introduced him.
Tommy gave me a Yashica T4 camera when I picked him up with it's epic Zeiss Tessar lens. I was surprised and pleased.
I loaded it when we got home and made those three images with it. Those cameras are going for crazy prices these days!
Tommy and I followed the Arps home afterwards and he and Bill set about going through everything. It was a fruitful trip for Tommy and profitable for Bill. All because of eBay and the Internet.
Eventually Parkinson's took it's toll on Bill and he went into Hospice care. I visited him one time but seeing him that way broke my heart. They wouldn't let him take his meds or wear his dentures. He shook so bad. He died and was buried at Arlington National Cemetery with full military honors. Sadly, his wife refused to let anyone but family attend the ceremony! So, we and the family minus HER, all met at a restaurant afterwards and toasted Bill's life. A fine time was had by all. I kept in touch with Bill's son in Oklahoma and his granddaughter too for a while. Nice young woman.
Despite my feelings for Suzanne, I continued to sell the collection for her. One thing that caught my eye while going through things with her was this:
"Oh, that old leopard skin, here, let me throw it away." "No! It's beautiful!" Bill had bought it in Bangkok on one of their trips overseas. My wife decided to semi-stuff it so it could be displayed. She added the "google eyes" as I call them. She was working on the floor, and Moe, another of our cats was walking on the skin and sniffing it. When he saw the eyes, he jumped STRAIGHT UP into the air and took off running! We laughed SO hard.
Anyway, once all the main camera and lens collection except for large fragile things were sold, and thousands of small things were left, I suggested to her to let Bill's camera buddies come in and take the rest. Which she did. Once our dealings were done, I never saw or talked to her again.
I still miss Colonel Bill and am grateful for his friendship and love. I wish I could tell you more about him, but it's been so many years since he passed. Many of the camera/photography books that I have were once his. Many of those I am getting ready to put on eBay as I never even look at them and I am sure other camera collectors will enjoy them.
Thanks for looking,
Scott
January 9, 2017
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