Functional Antique

We drove through Arizona, Utah and Southern California for our honeymoon a few years ago and I took most of the photos of the Grand Canyon and Monument Valley on Kodachrome film. The lab made a mistake in the processing and only gave me the slides instead of including a photo CD with them. They refused to correct the error and I didn't have a projector so I've never gotten to get a good look at them. Since then the boxes of slides have sat in a container that I occasionally pass and remind myself that I should do something about the slides. By chance I noticed an old Leica Pradovit projector on eBay and bid on it. I lost that auction but I kept looking now and then and finally nabbed one. It is as simple and as elegant as a slide projector can get and certainly all that I need for the occasional viewing of slides at home. It's a Leitz Prado SM-300 from the late 1950s and 1960s with a solid lens and tough bakelite body. Instead of €250 or more for a projector with more electronics than my laptop, this was only £20 and will likely outlast most of the new ones that require service instead of a hammer or a pair of pliers. :)

The only problem with the projector was that the seller likely picked it up at a local boot sale without checking the parts or knowing the slightest thing about shipping things that contain glass. Fortunately, all of the optics survived the trip, but the bulb was not so lucky. Removing the old bulb was an exercise in patience since the socket is unusual and flanged. I had to use a leatherman to carefully go down into the socket and ease up one of the flange guides that had been bent which made the removal of the bulb impossible. I took the bulb's ID number, started searching on the net and only found one place that had them in stock and they were €150 each. For a cheap old projector, this was likely not an economical solution. I needed to go by EP-Kamera to see if I could get a lens cap for the leica anyway, so I thought I'd take a chance and ask if they had a bulb. The gentleman who owns the shop immediately recognised it and was able to order 2 of them for €20 each for me. It reminded me of why the internet sucks for buying things that require some level of expertise in the seller. I had forgotten how nice it is to have a shop like the electronic parts place my father used to take me to where the owners knew their business and loved what they did. Now we have a working projector and I promise not to torture the family with captive slide shows at dinnertime. :)

27 Feb 2004 at 1:56, Helsinki