I've been buying cameras and lenses and so forth semi-seriously since 1969, when I bought my first SLR (a Miranda Sensorex, which I bought from Century Camera in Minneapolis, if you wondered). I remember the new Leitz Summicron 90mm from Olden in New York for $360, and the Summicron 35mm from Finn's Camera in St. Paul for $240. I remember hours of poring over the "catalog" pages in the back of Popular Photography, looking at all the strange cameras and lenses, and darkroom equipment, and flashes, and light meters, and bags, and tripods, and so forth. I learned a lot from that, not least to read advertisements very carefully.
It occurred to me recently that I could capture scans or images of some of those pages, from different years, and keep them around for reference. Possibly I will also pick prices for some particular pieces of gear and plot charts of the prices over time. I'll bet Nikon hasn't raised their prices as fast as Leica!
Currently most of the page images come from the bound volumes of magazines in the Central Hennepin County Library. Thank you, public library, for doing your job so well!
However, this means I couldn't get the pages really flat, and that some of the data disappears into the gutter of the binding. I have some ideas on a frame to hold pages so it's easier to line the camera up properly, and easier to apply lighting evenly; but I don't know that I'm likely to ever implement them, or go back and re-photograph these pages. They're legible, is what counts for now. If you've got better images that you'd like me to archive, by all means get in touch!
These files are fairly big; you may need to zoom in to be able to read them, especially the blurrier parts.
Wall St. Camera pg 1 Wall St. Camera pg 2 Wall St. Camera pg 3 Wall St. Camera pg 4
Olden Camera pg 1 Olden Camera pg 2
Olden Camera pg 1 Olden Camera pg 2
Wall St. Camera pg 1 Wall St. Camera pg 2
These images I found on the web, so I can't promise of my own
knowledge that they're what they say they are.
n2020
Nikon at Adorama
Nikon
Nikon
Nikon December 1986
