Top 10 Things I Can't Bear To Sell On E-Bay

...example of the latter and top of my list (and it's even in a show case in the dining room) comes my:-

1) NIKON F 35 mm SLR CAMERA Circa 1975

"When I were a lad, before the war ended*", I'd hankered after a Nikon F, vowing one day to own one.

*Vietnam, not the Crimean, before anyone asks!

They weren't neat and tidy like the Pentax's of the day, in fact they were, how can I put it, ...
...and extended with kitchen work top to fill the entire length. Here I have my bolted down tools - a bench stand for an electric drill and a rather hefty engineers vice. The right hand side has a higher bench pitched at my waist height, and cantilevered out from the wall so as to create no further obstructions to the floor area. It has mains wiring provided via a safety breaker from the house so that any garden appliance plugged in is likewise protected, ... more

There's an old adage I just invented, and I'm sure many others will have heard something similar, that:

'If it ain't useful or ornamental, and you haven't needed it for two years, get rid of it'.

Of course, this could be particularly bad news for us middle-aged men!

Our loft is a good case in points. Eight years ago, a friend of ours who was moving to Japan for 'two years' asked if he could put his (quite literally) ton of belongings in our loft. Every now and then he'd buy us a meal on his annual returns to see his mum. Then we lost e-mail contact with him, except to hear from someone else that he'd moved to Germany more or less permanently, and since his mum had now died, we read between the lines that we wouldn't necessarily be seeing him again.

Incensed that we'd been taken for suckers for 6 years more than scheduled, and wanting to clear the loft so I could floor-board it, we got all the offending stuff down onto the landing. At this point, I vowed that there was no way that I would consider putting it all back again…….so with one or two exceptions, I dumped the lot in 6 trips to the dump.

Heartless? I don't think so, and the catharsis of ridding myself of all that weight, both in the real and virtual sense was gratifying. The exercise also got me thinking about what he'd really miss if he ever turned up again, so we kept back the portable TV (quote - I've had that since I was 10 - unquote), the electric guitar that he was still struggling to 'play in a day, the Bert Weedon way' (showing my age there) and a briefcase full of those bits of paper we all seem to cling onto, school reports, G(C)SE certificates and the like.

To date, we still haven't seen him for 6 years, nor know of his whereabouts, so if you're reading this, Neil, don't bother bringing a van, a rucksack will do.

Now then, just suppose I had to sell everything on e-bay to ward off bankruptcy - what would I never part with?

Hmmmm…..trickier that one, as I'm a bit of a hoarder, especially of 'redundant technology'.

In fact one of the things that came to light in my clearing the loft was a crate full of the stuff. To be fair, I did weed it there and then, but even so, there are items in there that bring back memories, or merit cherishing for some other reason. For example, I do like objects that are either the smallest neatest in their class, hence my recent penchant for an iPod Nano, or that possess caché by association.

As an example of the latter and top of my list (and it's even in a show case in the dining room) comes my:-

1) NIKON F 35 mm SLR CAMERA Circa 1975

"When I were a lad, before the war ended*", I'd hankered after a Nikon F, vowing one day to own one.

*Vietnam, not the Crimean, before anyone asks!

They weren't neat and tidy like the Pentax's of the day, in fact they were, how can I put it, a bit industrial being pretty lacking in any kind of styling, but I'd seen the way David Hemmings wielded one with such casual disdain in 'Blow Up'. I'd seen (on TV, not at first hand) countless photos of various pressmen up to their arses in mangrove swamp, all valiantly keeping their 'Fs' out of the mire whilst going head to head with Charlie VC.

This was the Kalashnikov AK-47 of the celluloid world. Just as Soviet-backed soldiers learned to strip, clean and reassemble their 47s whilst blindfolded, the average war photographer could change viewfinders, load new film and fit the motor drive and change lenses (no mean feat to do quickly) under the same conditions. There were even apocryphal stories of 'Fs' falling into muddy water, then being kept 'alive' in a bucket of clean water to prevent them drying out till later, only to survive the ordeal after a strip-down and re-greasing of the metal shutter mechanism. I'm not sure whether any film inside would also have been printable.

So there it was in a camera shop window in Chiswick; a used Nikon F, with normal eye-level viewfinder. That's history now, I bought it, I've used it, and despite now being a 100% digital photographer, I'm going to keep it. Who knows what its history was? I'm tempted to think back to Vietnam, but the smart money's on the gravest danger this one has seen being when the wedding photographer stepped back into a main road without looking first! Still, you can dream, can't you?

Introduced around 1959, the basic Nikon F body wasn't so much a camera as the centre of a set of building blocks - different types of viewfinder, some with built-in light meters, a whole new range of bayonet-fit lenses, motor-drives, great bulging magazines allowing bulk film to be used, and available in two 'colourways', chrome and leather or black and leather! Pros chose black to stop reflections giving their position away in danger zones. Even now, I can strip mine down till it's only a skeleton, sans lens, sans viewfinder, sans back, in fact sans just about everything.

Oh yes, AND its basic functions still work with a flat battery!!

So why wouldn't I sell it on e-bay? Well, for one thing I might have to face the fact that I paid far too much for it in the first place!

2) SPACE PEN Circa 1990

This is the pen that is reputed to work in space, under water, and even on paper, NASA having spent millions on its development - of course the Russians used pencils, the only development needed being the new sharpener that didn't leave shavings floating weightless. My Space Pen has a charmed life. For a pen without a clip, it's a bloody miracle it wasn't lost ages ago, but it's got my name on it which helps. It's also very compact, like a long stainless bullet when capped, so it drops to the bottom of any pen caddy you might have, which makes it less likely to be the first thing to hand, which also helps not lose it I guess. A pen you can rarely find - how useful is that?

Still, it's mine and I'm very fond of it…..every time I find it, that is.

Why wouldn't I put it on e-bay? Well, with its charmed life, it'd no doubt pick the time of the auction to get really lost, leaving me having to back-pedal on the sale.

3) BROMPTON FOLDING BIKE Circa 2001

Speaking of pedalling, I've written about this one at some length already, so I won't bore you with the details. The Brompton has to be just about the 'foldingest' bike there is, compared to some of the others I've sampled and as such, that makes it fittest for purpose, especially since it's so damned easy to ride too. I do use another full-sized bike of Ridgeback origins although you'd never guess now it's been re-sprayed, and if I'm anticipating a long ride from my house back to my house, then the big job is has to be. For anything else, the Brompton gets used, ranging from taking it half way there in the car or on public transport, riding it the rest of the way, to VERY long rides where I'm anticipating needing a lift back! I've ridden literally thousands of miles on it in its 5-year life so far, and apart from changing the tyres every now and then, courtesy of their somewhat spartan tread pattern, and the replacement of one moving part, it's as original.

To be honest, I'd be better off selling a car first - but then wouldn't we all?

4) SMART CAR Circa 2001

OK, it's my wife's steed of preference really (until there are minor details like the insurance to stump up for), but we both love driving it, her in automatic mode, me playing with the 6-speed gear box - but not at the same time, you understand.

Our other car I could write-off tomorrow and just be glad I took out GAP insurance to get all my money back, not that there's anything wrong with it, but the SMART is just so….well…..SMART in concept at least.

Someone figured out that most car journeys have only 1-point-something passengers including the driver, so there was no need for dragging a 5-seater round with you all day. If I'm honest, and especially since the Brompton bike fits in the back, it's all we REALLY need, MOST of the time. Whilst I'm being honest, ownership of another car for me is more about having one each than any other great purpose. The money I'd save by not having another could be spent on mini-cabs and hiring cars for motoring holidays - oh yes, and having fridges delivered from Currys.

It seems a shame to me that MCC SMART's economic future is in question, and has been for some time, especially since this is just the type of car that cities are crying out for. The sportier low-down roadster has been discontinued which doesn't look too good for the rest.

Maybe it'll become a classic rather sooner than its '51' plate would indicate.

Ironically, under those circumstances, selling it on e-bay could actually become impossible, unless it's for spares to keep another one running. Still, I'll cross that bridge when I come to it - if we get 10 year's life out of it, and it's worth nothing at the end, we've not lost a lot by today's standards.

We've even got a 1:18th scale model of the actual car, courtesy of my own efforts to re-spray a proprietary model which started life as black and red., ending up as silver and metallic blue. Even the number plates are authentic - I photographed the real ones, and then printed them out (very) small.

5) MY OLD GEOMETRY SET Circa 1962

I came across this the other day and fighting off the urge to rid myself of anything to do with school, I decided to keep it, nay cherish it. It's so well made, from its maroon velvet-lined case to the chrome of the compasses and the dividers. There's something about a precision instrument that shrieks 'don't dump me', and for no better reason than that, I won't, despite having hated maths with a vengeance. So much of what we gather around ourselves these days has built-in obsolescence, whereas this doesn't. There's no circuit board to burn out, no batteries to leak, and who knows, I may even need to draw a perfect circle one day. It's also a link to the days when you saved up for things, or in this case, my mum and dad did, since it wasn't cheap, and no doubt behind the scenes, they went without something to buy it.

6) THE OLD SCHOOL PHOTO Circa 1967

I've got 'mattygroves' to thank for this one. Having discovered that her husband went to the same school as me, only he was five years younger at the time (and strangely enough, he still is) we dug out the old school photo dated 1967. As luck would have it, this was the one year in however many, when they had one of those scanned wide angle shots of all 600 of us taken at what was then Isleworth Grammar School. Yes, there is always someone not looking at the camera/picking their nose and this is no exception. Disappointingly, no-one tried to get in the photo at one end and then dash to the other end faster than the clockwork scanning mechanism could move, thereby appearing twice, but we never were particularly naughty at IGS.

Since my mum has taken such care in the husbandry of this photo, the last thing I'd ever do, despite my Brylcreemed Hitler-like hair style is get rid of it, besides which my little brother's in there somewhere too with equally suspect coiffure!

As for all those single male teachers who seemed overly keen to make us all wear shorts in cold weather…….FUNNY they never married!?

7) MY MECCANO SET (WELL IT'S MY DAD'S TOO) Circa 1910 Onwards

Back in 1901, Frank Hornby knew what he was doing when he punched holes with a ½ inch spacing into metal strips for his kids to play with. I rate Meccano as one of the most formative experiences of my early years - my Dad inherited an enormous outfit from his many brothers having come from a huge family of 9 siblings, and of course the major benefit was all that 'quality time' as they call it these days, spent with my Dad, building something quite adventurous. Thanks to the many sources, the set was hardly ever limited by running out of a vital part. For instance, if you built a tram or a railway locomotive, you were never going to be stymied by a lack of ability to make 30 feet of track too - it had that many girders! Mind you, Mum wasn't too keen on our using the skirting board or the French windows as terminal buffers! Likewise, all manner of gears and pulleys made harbour-side cranes a particular favourite. Even today, my dad (87 next birthday) will proudly show me a 'marine steam engine' he's modelled, and squinting to avoid the improbable sight of a boiler full of holes, damn me, it looks and moves like the real thing. I prefer the 'life in microcosm' approach, such as modelling the entire front end of a car transmission; differential, steering, suspension and drive joints, the lot.

However, what 'holey' Meccano begs from you, and likewise encourages by the cart load is IMAGINATION'.

I still remember the look on my Mum's face after entering the dining room, on the day that I'd introduced a working tram service, (thirty years before Croydon's) including the overhead wires (only 12 volts, honest Mum) and the reversing loop of track at the far side of the room. The one thing she wouldn't have dared to say was, 'Wait till your father gets home', knowing full well that he'd have loved it too, and probably would have extended it into the hallway given half a chance!

What a pity that so few toys these days build-up systematically, growing with you, as it were; Lego being just about the only other example I can think of.

I shudder to think what our massive Meccano set is worth, but since much of the paint has come off, I won't be appearing on Antique's Roadshow with it despite some of it's parts dating back to around the First World War, or Ebay for that matter.

8) MY GARDEN SHED Circa 1975

Yes, I know this would definitely be a 'buyer collects' item if put up for sale on Ebay, but it's not going to happen anyway. I inherited this when I bought my current house some 20-odd years ago, and by modern standards it's worth a lot of money. For a start it's about 8' by 6', which beats the 6' by 4' £300 jobs in Homebase into a cocked hat. It's also well built enough to BE 25 years old! Someone had the foresight not only to make it a nice big concrete base, but they laid a course of bricks around its floor plan, so as to raise the headroom of the whole thing by an appreciable amount. This does however mean that whilst wearing vari-focal glasses I have to tilt my head steeply downwards to get the ground in focus whilst stepping over the raised threshold, forgetting to duck also - oh how I laugh every time I do that - not. I now sympathise with the submariners in 'Das Boot' as they rush through a series of bulkheads during a crash dive.

Over the years, it's become a bit of a workshop, with a bit of a cycle garage and scrap metal store thrown in for good measure.

Its current manifestation sees it with a whole row of worktop on the left as you enter it, built from a proper work bench and extended with kitchen work top to fill the entire length. Here I have my bolted down tools - a bench stand for an electric drill and a rather hefty engineers vice. The right hand side has a higher bench pitched at my waist height, and cantilevered out from the wall so as to create no further obstructions to the floor area. It has mains wiring provided via a safety breaker from the house so that any garden appliance plugged in is likewise protected, and the lighting is curiously fashionable, being one of those 12 volt stretched wire jobs. I bought it from IKEA and then couldn't decide what to do with it! This higher bench is 'pencilled in' as the terminus station for a garden railway that I'll probably never get round to building. If only I smoked, I could start having pipe-dreams.

The roof catches rain and it's amazing that such a small area is all that's needed to fill a full size water butt quite quickly.

I like my shed - its dimension make it useable as a workshop for many jobs. Its storage capacity is sans pareil, although just recently I have noticed a disturbing trend; Ruth has discovered it too, so I'm fighting hard to stop my 'pencilled-in station' from becoming a dump for unwanted picnic sets and those 'vital' electrical appliances that seemed like a good idea at the time (I'm still smarting over how much room the 'triple-decker' vegetable steamer takes up), and just where the engine shed was going to be too!

I do also have a smaller shed for the storage of mowers, bikes etc, so I guess I'll have to change my name to Jackson (see Monty Python). Of course, if the number of sheds becomes a council tax issue under the threatened review, there's no prize for guessing which one gets the boot.

Gosh, it might have been me who suggested this category, but this is getting to be hard work. Another two?

9) AIWA PERSONAL STEREO Circa 1980

Harking back to what I said about 'smallest' and 'neatest in its class, then the Aiwa personal stereo that I bought about 26 years ago must be worth keeping, if only as an example of something that old, with electronics that STILL work. To look at it, with its brushed (real) aluminium casing, you'd never guess its age. It's as fresh a piece of design as you could hope to find today - all that gives it away is the fact that its record medium is a tape cassette. Yes, it also records in stereo, either from built-in mikes, external mikes or its FM radio. It's easy to see why this thing still works - it's some damned well made with stainless steel parts much in evidence. Two things keep me from selling it.

a) No-one would want to buy something that doesn't have the magic word 'digital' splattered all over it , and….

b) It's the same age as my daughter, and I don't suppose I'd get much for her on e-bay either.

10) BEIRETTE 35 MM CAMERA Circa 1965

I started with a camera, so I'll finish with one. My very first foray into 'proper' photography (by my definition, 35 mm, as opposed to all the other formats that came and went at the time, Instamatic, 127 and the like) was with a Beirette camera from the factory of Woldemar Beier in Freital near Dresden in what was then the DDR. It was exclusive to Boots and although totally manual, gave me something to get my teeth into. Unlike my previous cameras, it needed focussing. It also needed the shutter speed and the aperture to be selected. None of these were in the least automatic, so of course, I also had to get to grips with rangefinders for the focussing and a light meter for the exposure settings, thereby satisfying my need for a 'nice gadget' to play with.

I still get it out of my 'redundant technology' crate every now and then and marvel at its build quality of its sparkling matt chrome finish and its general dinkiness some 40-odd years on. Yes, it had some internal plastic parts (I'm not THAT old) but it never gave ANY trouble through hundreds if not thousands of photographs. Even in those days, the word 'upgrade' wasn't far from my lips, so it wasn't long before it got replaced by an SLR camera also of east German origin, but I've kept my Beirette through all these debacles, whilst the others have become 'e-bay fodder' even before e-bay was invented (or the Internet for that matter).

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After I've posted this opinion, I'm straight off to the loft again, and who knows, this time, I may give the Beirette pride of place next to my Nikon F in the show case. After all, it's got more of a claim to being part of MY history than the Nikon has!

 

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