I can't remember who on the "list" mentioned Altman's Camera Store in
Chicago, but with all the talk of old stores full of great stuff,
thought I'd come clean and 'fess up - I used to work at Altman's from
1973-1975. They closed in June 1975 when Ralph Altman and his wife
just got tired of the whole rat-race. This store had EVERYTHING! I
worked on the first floor (still cameras)and remember one year when we
did inventory, I spent an interesting morning counting five drawers of
Alpa accessories. Cheeeeeez! There must have been
twenty-thousand-1974-dollars-worth of stuff just in those five
drawers! I bought my first OM there, a used non-MD OM1, which I still
own and which *desperately* needs to go to John H. for CLA & foam.
Mr. Altman and his wife were very nice people. When I got into a
small financial bind one week, I mentioned it to Mrs. Altman, she
pulled out the company's checkbook and gave me an advance on my next
paycheck. I'd only worked there a couple months at the time.
The OM system was fairly new then and, of course, I was "sold" on it
right away. It was so much more compact and light-weight than Nikon
or Canon.
Customers for the OM system seemed to include quite a few current &
former Leica range-finder owners who wanted to use an SLR, but were
accustomed to lightweight, compact cameras.
This was the golden age of SLR's; the OM's, the FTB's, the SRT-101's,
Nikons and Pentax were all lovely mechanical marvels that felt *good*
just to hold and operate. I just can't get used to the plasto-blob
cameras that resemble Salvador Dali sculptures and need a degree in
computer science to operate!
I've been a lurker on the list for several months, but can't get to
the mail through all the teenagers on the computer, playing their
shoot-em-up-Charlie games and surfin' the net. Plus, my wife plays
FreeCell every chance she gets! Can't believe we paid so much money
for a computerized deck of cards!
Well, guess I've rambled on long enough . . .
John Robison
_________________________________________________________
DO YOU YAHOO!?
Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com
< This message was delivered via the Olympus Mailing List >
< For questions, mailto:owner-olympus@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx >
< Web Page: http://Zuiko.sls.bc.ca/swright/olympuslist.html >
|