Wild M400 mounted on Aristophot on ebay

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g4lab
Posts: 1437
Joined: Fri May 23, 2008 11:07 am

Wild M400 mounted on Aristophot on ebay

Post by g4lab »

Here
is the penultimate photo macro outfit. A Leitz Aristophot stand with transmitted light macro illuminator and a Wild M400 Makroscope with 35mm camera and a Volpi Swiss fiberoptic illuminator.

If I had about $2500 to snipe this with handy, I wouldn't be posting it here.
But I would rather see someone get it who will actually use it rather than a dealer buy it and flip it to a university for $8000.

In 1977 we bought this exact outfit. We already had the Aristophot. I took the Linhof made long bellows 4x5 camera and reflex mirror off and stuffed it on top of a refrigerator in the lab. The slightly cruder looking piece, which joins the Wild to the Leitz, was something they came up with because Leitz and Wild were well into merger talks if not already merged.
We paid $17,000 for the outfit not including the Aristophot.

A great outfit.
Somebody go buy it. If you do I will help you stick a digicam on it
and help you with any other accessories you care to buy.

Please somebody buy this!!!

342 people have looked at it. All the action will be at the last second.
Snipe $3000 if you can.
I have no connection with the seller whatsoever. I would like to see this go to a good home.
I will be pleased to assist our non US list members with it if they are interested.

lauriek
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Post by lauriek »

Thanks for the heads up - If there was any likelyhood at all of it going for the opening bid then I'd make sure I was around to have a bid but sadly there's no way I can come up with the likely $2000-$3000 price it will actually go for!

augusthouse
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Location: New South Wales Australia

Post by augusthouse »

It's interesting that there have been no bidders yet and there are no listed questions from interested persons (though the seller can elect not to display questions and answers). This may well be a 'sleeper'. There had been 403 views last time I looked. Someone has to 'put their toe in the water' soon, surely.

It was originally listed for $14,000.00 (138 views) but was passed in on July 20th with no buyers.
To use a classic quote from 'Antz' - "I almost know exactly what I'm doing!"

lauriek
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Post by lauriek »

In my experience these things always shoot up in price in the last 5 minutes. I was watching a lovely Oly stereo scope a few weeks back, was sitting near it's opening bid of around £100 ($200). I'd worked out this was an extremely expensive scope (it was a BX60 or something like that) - and I thought I was going to get myself a silly bargain. Then it shot up to about $2500!! Dissapointed! :)

g4lab
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Post by g4lab »

The action on these is always in the last fifteen seconds. They are snapped up by dealers. THe fourteen thousand was probably half what the original owner paid.

But with this bad economy there can be some legal theft. A friend of mine in denver got a similar unit recently for $1,113. A steal. He loves it.

Just to stir the pot I am going to shoot a bid in.

P_T
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Joined: Sat Jul 19, 2008 1:13 am
Location: Sydney, Australia

Post by P_T »

Not that i'm going to try to bid... but I'm just wondering what you meant by "snipe $3000".

lauriek
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Post by lauriek »

He means put in a snipe bid of $3000 in the last 15 seconds - sniping on ebay is nipping in and outbidding the others in the last moments of the auction. It's in my experience the only way to win popular items... Just wish I had $3000 spare at the moment! ;)

DaveW
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Post by DaveW »

You can get software, or web sites, that will automatically place your bid in the closing seconds on auction sites, so you don't stand much chance of beating people to outbid them if they are using it:-

http://www.auctionsniper.com/

http://www.powersnipe.com/?source=google&kw=bidlast

http://www.esnipe.com/

I have always wondered what happens if you get two people using the same software to place a bid in the final seconds, or even using competing software?

DaveW

lauriek
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Post by lauriek »

In that case both softwares should enter each user's highest bids in the last 10 seconds so whoever puts in the highest bid wins...

ETA In the event that both users had the same value set and the same time value, then the bid which arrived first would win. (Although the site might send two requests at the same time (in seconds) one will always get there first in milliseconds! :) Purely down to luck then...

g4lab
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Joined: Fri May 23, 2008 11:07 am

Post by g4lab »

I use Ace Sniper which is server based. Their servers are close to ebays because they are an ebay development partner. They also have search software called Prospector which is unbelieveable. Helps you find what you are looking for. Highly recommended.

Fifteen seconds before closing is not a snipe.

It has to be more like three seconds. Seven at most. Skilled people can respond to seven seconds I think. I have never gotten that crazy. The real trick is to snipe in a winning ie. high amount. Doing it right at the end saves you a little money by not allowing you to be bid up. But you still have to beat everyone else who shows up.

On the Wild scope the winner shot in a high bid with three minutes to go.

There were three snipes at the end which pushed the price up to $1250 and change. The snipes raised the price about $400.

Planapo
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Post by Planapo »

Who of you is retrojoe59 then? :wink:

Now seriously, if retrojoe59 isn´t a buddy of the seller and it really went for 1275 US$ that would be a very attractive price, provided it was in good condition. But the fact that this seller doesn´t seem to be specialized in such equipment and his description
but it has been out of service for many years. Will need at least calibration to bring back into service.

gives me some concern.
However, the low prices in the US are tempting but then there are additional tax (19% for Germany, on the shipping costs too), plus duty, plus shipping costs for such heavy and bulky items...

But hey, with the techniques propagated on these boards here (and with many thanks to Charlie and Rik) it´s possible - although not in such a convenient manner, but in return on a much lower budget - to achieve quite the same results as with a Photomakroskop. (I had access to one not long ago.)


--Betty :D

edit: Ah, silly me, now I got it. Not the M400 but the bellows camera was stuffed on top of a fridge!
Last edited by Planapo on Tue Jul 29, 2008 9:30 pm, edited 1 time in total.

g4lab
Posts: 1437
Joined: Fri May 23, 2008 11:07 am

Post by g4lab »

I have seen this retroejoe guy before.

The "needs calibration" means it lived somewhere where things needed calibration. There is no calibration needed for this.

The sellers took good pictures of it. I can't recall evey buying anything that looked that good on the outside that didn't also look good on the inside.
But that is one of the risks you run on fleabay.

I am very chagrined to report that the beautiful 4X5 Leitz/Linhof long bellows macrocamera was removed from its rail which was retained to give the M400 more up and down coarse motion on the Aristophot. It laid up there with no lens on it with its bellows splayed like an animal with a broken spine. It was there when I left the lab in 1981. It probably landed in the trash dumpster.
It had a compur shutter, a steel measuring tape and a 4x5 90 degree reflex back. The lens was removed before putting it out to pasture.

The M400 came with a 35mm camera and a 4x5 camera that were easily interchanged. It may have had a 6x9cm back too but I don't remember.

The last time I visited the lab, was three or four years ago. I asked the current technician about it and he led me to an undercounter cabinet where the Aristophot with the M400 was stored .The 35mm back was on it. The camera controller and fiber optic light and transmitted light base.were nowhere in evidence. No one who was working there had ever seen it used. I tried to buy it but they wouldn't sell it to me.

Perhaps my attempt at buying it might stimulate them to put it back into service.

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