[LargeFormat] Contact frame

[rstein]

Dear Lee,

     Ooh, Umm, Err. I wonder if I should....

     Oh, What the - Forgive me if this comes out sounding strange. I
certainly don't mean any thing bad in it.

     Please be careful if you find your Deardorff. I found a Leica M3 double
stroke in perfect nick about a decade ago. It was advertised in the Sunday
Times newspaper and I was appaerntly the first one to call. It was indeed an
estate sale from the deceased uncle of the couple selling it.

     They wanted about 1/3 of what should have been the price. I paused when
I heard the circumstances and then told them what the real price should be -
or rather what the camera might fetch if advertised in a wider photo market.

     They conferred with each other and then said that they would stick by
the original price. I then found myself asking whether there was an old
auntie who was to be the beneficiary of the sale. Apparently not - she had
died years ago. It was all their decision. I still offered to pay a higher
price and they still insisted on the original - so with that I considered I
had done all that ethics could ask and paid up.

    All was kosher. The Leica was all that Wetzlar ever intended it to be -
and both the couple and myself could sleep at night. I like to think that
there are more ears listening to us when we deal with deceased estates than
we can count in the room.

     So when you find the Deardorff and they ask you for an offer....well,
remember the ears.

     Uncle Dick

PS: Congrats on the dry press. May it never fall off the bench and crush
your foot or set fire to your workroom.