Posts in flea market
Flea Market Find Vintage Cameras

One of my favorite things to do is shop the local flea markets for sweet vintage collectables. There are lots of cool things I'm always looking for, but one of the main ones is vintage cameras. Some are just for decoration and some go straight into my lineup for general use.  I haven't been collecting long, so my collection is still pretty small. I thought it would be cool to share some of my flea market finds with y'all so I took to the book shelves of the study in my home for a photoshoot of inanimate objects. Hope you enjoy! 

CANON AE-1 - $150

This is my most recently acquired treasure. I've been on the hunt for one of these beauties for a little while now. Haven't had much of chance to put it to good use, but definitely looking forward to having some fun with this one. The Canon AE-1 is a 35 mm SLR, first introduced in 1976 and remained in production until 1984, which when you think about it is a really long time for a single model to be produced. I feel like that says a lot about the quality and popularity of this classic camera. This camera was the first SLR to come equipped with a microprocessor and during it's years in production, sold over a million units. 

SUPER 8 MOVIE CAMERA

Every serious collector has to have one of these gems in their collection. The iconic Super 8 Movie Camera was first manufactured by Kodak in 1965 and remains one of the most popular shelf sitters in a ll the land. The one I found still had its original Sears Instruction Manual and fancy leather carrying case. It's popularity and production continued into the 1970's when more modern versions of video cameras started to come along. 

POLAROID SX-70 - $125

This camera might be my absolute favorite. It is an incredible feat of engineering, being fully collapsible which makes for easy transport and most people don't even know what they're looking at when it is collapsed form. It then transforms into a camera that dispenses it's prints in real-time:) Polaroid phased out it's film production in late 2005 rendering many of their products virtually useless. That is until The Impossible Project came along and reinvigorated Polaroids cult following with new film for it's products. This camera was in production from 1972 - 1980. 

BELL & HOWELL 16 MM MAGAZINE CAMERA - $35.00

This camera is a mid-century shelf sitter (non-working) first released in the 1950's. It  has an all metal body with a leatherette wrapping. This would have been used for shooting video and did not take batteries, but uses a windup spring motor mechanism instead. 

POLAROID A80 Land Camera - $60

This camera was a gift from my mom so it is extra special and adds value for sure! It is still a fairly new member of the collection and a ton of information isn't readily available online so I can only assume they only made 1 and it is the holy grail of cameras, worth over 2 million dollars. Full disclosure, I'm operating on zero factual knowledge. Just a hunch:)

YASHICA A - $55

The Yashica A Medium Format Camera was first introduced in 1959. Shutter speed and aperture are controlled with fancy dials and levers on the sides of the camera. This is about as simple as cameras get. Simple is good:)

Yashica A Medium Format Camera

KODAK BROWNIE STARLET CAMERA - $20

The 'Brownie' was a simple plastic point and shoot camera first introduced by Kodak in 1956. This is the smallest camera in my collection. It is just a cute little 127 format camera. These usually aren't too expensive, so if you run across one, grab it! 

KODAK INSTAMATIC 104 - $20

This camera is one of Kodak's greatest success stories for the 126 film cartridge. Kodak alone sold 60 million of it's instamatic models. Most of those sales came in the 1960's and 70's