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Short Anecdotes
all about Collecting
and Flea Markets
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An Old Flame
A somewhat hectic but pleasant female voice on the other end of the line:
"You are looking for old cameras?"
"Yes, that's true."
"I've got one, an old Zeiss-Ikon camera. Are you interested?"
"Well, maybe, what kind of camera is it?"
"Yes...sort of old one...with bellows, I
think its called..."
"Anything written on it?"
"Yes, no, well you know...I have this
camera for so long...and then I've heard that you are collecting old cameras and I thought...this thing is lying
around here in the closet for so many years and its of no use anyway.
Isn't that right, Karl...?"
"Mmhmm..."
"But is there any name written on it?"
"Well, yes...I can read...Ikonta...and then...
You know, I have to tell you this. That is to say, this camera was presented to me by my boyfriend at that time
when I had my seventeenth birthday."
"Oh, but don't let your husband hear it."
"Ah, him..."
"But you want to sell the camera
anyway, even if its a nice piece of
remembrance?"
"...ah, well yes...!"
"Okay, so I should have a look at the
camera for myself then..."
"Yes, perfect, just drop by. When do
you wan to come...we are sited...okay then, till tomorrow, 5 p.m. By the way,
you have a very pleasant voice, you are a young man, aren't you?"
"Not that young, I'm already 48 now."
"No, really?"
"But you have a very youthful voice..."
"Oh yes? But I'm already over sixty."
"Your voice sounds much younger."
"Well, you will see tomorrow..."
Next day, shortly before the
appointment the telephone rings:
"Oh, I'm so glad to reach you in time...
you know, I have thought it over
again...I'd like to keep the camera...I
have found an extra nice place for it in
the sitting room...and decorated it
nicely...and...it is a very nice
keepsake anyway...!!!"
That's why I sadly missed to meet this
nice older lady with the pleasant voice... |
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Start of part 2
There's written....
Max Siebel, Siegen
Marburgerstrasse 28
....or something like that.
Hmm...well...what next? Not a clue at first glance. But anyway, let's try.
I transfer the data to the search mask of a Phone Address CD. And
unbelievably an address of a photoshop in Siegen shows up. Same
address...one...Siebel. I decide to write a letter to this person asking for
more information on this camera, which should come from that shop. I
include a print of the picture shown above. I was awaiting some reaction
in a few days, but nothing happened.
Some weeks later I think of trying to phone directly, same moment my
phone rings. Some Mrs. Irmgard Siebel is on the line, the grand daughter
of the photographer Carl Siebel, who ran the photoshop in Siegen around
1900. And he had taken over the shop from his father Max Siebel. She is
very interested in the history of their ancestors and tries to find
documents and photographs of that time. And naturally she's very
surprised and delighted to get new information this way. She knows of
old photographs, which belong to other members of the family and being
locked off.
All that I got to know through the phone from Mrs. Siebel, who added
that she is in possession of a newspaper page probably showing my
camera. She promises to send a copy of it to me.
This copy arrived a few days later. But its not really a copy, its a fax and
therefore the quality is bad. You see the fax pictured below. Its a copy of
a newspaper page of the "Siegener Zeitung" No. 297 (second page) from
Saturday, December 20, 1902!!!
End of part 2
To be continued...!
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