Does anyone know anything about old cameras?

Question

I bought a Argus C3 or possibly a C2 at a garage sale.

It looks really cool, but i don't really know anything about it.

And is it worth much to resell?

Anything you know please inform me =]

Answer 1

It really isn't worth much but I thought you might like to have a copy of the manual. It should explain everything you need to know about it.

http://arguscg.tripod.com/id82.html

Answer 2

i have an old camera and i used to be creative with it, but i haven't touched it in the last several years. now the digital camera is my toy.

old cameras are like old typewriters, no editing capability, no digital image, sure beautiful machines but who would use them now?

Answer 3

Hmmm.  Sounds like you had quite the find.  I've recently gotten into using rangefinders, and that one sounds like an interesting one.  How much it would cost would largely depend on its relative condition, and its exact model.

It does look like a fascinating camera.  Good find!  It's made primarily out of bakelite.  If it is mostly black, it does not have a light meter.  If it's a two-tone camera, there should be a selenium cell light meter on top of the camera.  Selenium cell light meters tend to be tricky, and from my experience with them, they seem to work best in bright light.  

Since you mentioned it's the C3, it's 35mm, so nearly any 35mm film will work in it.  It uses a leaf shutter, common for rangefinders of its age.  There's no real accessory shoes to speak of, so you can't really attach a modern flash onto it, but if there were, there's no worries about syncing problems - that only shows up in focal plane shutters.

And there is a reason one would want to use it.  Some people perfer film.  Some people perfer the superior highlight handling of film, the process of exposing, developing, and printing to see the image slowly fade into existance in the developer bath.  And really, while the C3 is an old camera, there's fairly high possibility it will still work.  I know several of the old 35mm cameras that I have still work perfectly.  I'd like to see a digital last 40+ years.