Olympus-OM
[Top] [All Lists]

Re: [OM] OLY 'bins' and old stores

Subject: Re: [OM] OLY 'bins' and old stores
From: John Robison <omrobison@xxxxxxxxx>
Date: Sun, 20 Sep 1998 10:04:16 -0700 (PDT)




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 >


<Prev in Thread] Current Thread [Next in Thread>
Sponsored by Tako
Impressum | Datenschutz