Trawling

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Just a diary post tonight - pictured, three acquisitions made today in Bangor. The two books from Relics and the lens sitting atop purchased from the Junk Shop which now occupies the original Relics building at the Mount Street end of town. On the left is a copy of The Planiverse by A.K Dewdney, which I've been on the look out for a long time now. I originally read a copy that my mate Dave lent me some thirty-five years ago: it cost me two quid. On the right is a copy of Ahead of the Game, by Calvin Tomkins, again two quid, which was a book I had throughout my time doing my degree in Fine Art in the 1970s, which I mislaid somewhere along the way: good to find another copy.

The lens is an enlarger lens: a Durst Componon 1:5.6/150 by Schneider-Kreuznach; tailor made for the Durst enlarger I won on eBay for 99p some time ago [blog posts passim]. The cost? the princely sum of a fiver. Similar lenses go for ninety quid on eBay, although there are a couple of scratches and blemishes on the front element that would preclude such a resale price; but which, in the real world, will not affect the performance of the thing: a lens, after all, cannot focus on itself. Nine quid for such treasures: not a bad day's trawling...

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