Lucky on Ebay - Canonet QL19

[mac_wt]

Last week I stumbled upon an Ebay-auction for a Canonet QL (no other specs) from a seller living about 15 km from me. Price at that time was 1 Euro with 1 bid. There was a crappy picture and no real information, except that the lightseals where in bad condition. So I put in a bid of 5 Euros, thinking somebody would eventually snipe it. Imagine my surprise when I found out I was the winner for 1,5 Euro!!!
Today I collected the camera. It's a QL19 in good condion, with UV-filter, non-working (but non-leaking) battery, lightseals allmost completely desintegrated and a small dent on the bottom plate. It came with a never-ready case and... the original warranty card (04/08/1971), English, Dutch and French manual and a Canon products guide. I'm very happy.
I scanned the English manual. You can download it from here:
http://homepage.mac.com/wtorbeyns/FileSharing32.html
Next I'll scan the product guide.

Wim

[mac_wt]

OK, the product guide is a 4,5 MB document, so I'll post some interesting pages here.
First the Canonets:

[mac_wt]

Next the Demi's and the Dial 35:

[mac_wt]

The screwmount lenses:

[peter_n]

Congratulations Wim! If the 1.9 lens is anything like the 1.7, you will have a true bargain there! :)

[mac_wt]

And some more screwmount:

Wim

[SolaresLarrave]

Wim, that product guide must be fun to read... Congratulations on your find! :) One can now see how eBay's tales are quickly replacing the garage-sale-find stories.

[Poptart]

Yeah . . . I have one of those I was going to list but I was hoping to get some real change for it. Everybody on eBay wants something for nothing.

[mac_wt]

I'm sure you would be able to sell a QL19 for a lot more money. It was produced for only 1 year, so it's a lot rarer than all the other canonets. If you list it with the right description and some good pics, it would probably fetch a more reasonable price.

Wim

[Poptart]

It's a ql17g3 in fact.

[Ratticus]

What kind of screw mount is it? M42?

[mac_wt]

To avoid confusion: Canonets are fixed lens rangefinders.
The screwmount stuff in the in the Product Guide is M39 or Leica Thread Mount (LTM) or Leica Screwmount. There are some serious fans of Canon LTM suff here (Joe?). That's why I posted those pages. By 1971 Canon had probably discontinued their LTM rangefinders, as they are not in the Guide, but all the lenses and other accesories are still there. There are also still several pics of rangefinders on the microsopes pages. It must be tough for a company to discontinue an entire range of their top of the line products.

Wim

[back alley]

much appreciated wim!

i love looking over all that old stuff.

joe