Remember this paragraph ?

Anyone wants to take one of my lesser worries away ? I need a UK-based person with a Paypal and Ebay account to buy on Ebay-UK a 9.95£ item for me. The seller suffers from the widespread fear for foreign postal services. All expenses paid by me of course. PM for details.

Well, I love it when an evil plan comes to work and thanks to a redshirted middle(wo)man I got the desired object. Thankfully the English seller didn't consider the wild territory above Hadrian's Wall (aka Scotland) as being foreign. Don't laugh, on Ebay UK it is possible to block bidders from the "Scottish Higlands and Islands", among a lot of other places. I don't know any other European Ebay where it's possible to block so many locations within their own country. Add to that that Ebay made some mistakes with the postal codes and the lack of geographical knowledge of some sellers. In Scotland even an enquiry has been opened concerning this discrimination of Scottish buyers.

And what was this preciousss object the seller didn't want to sell abroad ? An AM-winder, a badge-engineered Praktica B-winder meant to be used with the Jenaflex AM-1 camera, which in turn is a badge-engineered Praktica BC1 camera. Praktica's were often re-branded when sold abroad : Porst and Revue in West-Germany, Pentor in France, Jenaflex in the UK, Hanimex in the USA ... to name only a few. Note that all these winders were made in Japan.

While the original East-German camera and winder are easy to find, the Jenaflex are not. Even more unusual is a re-branded accessory, since all parts are compatible. Luckily the seller didn't realise what he was selling.

For those that know nothing about photography :

A winder cares for automatic film transport and allows burst shooting. Until the 1980s- 1990s they were separate accessories, nowadays they are incorporated into the camera.

These B- or AM- winders date from the 1980s and produce a very loud sewing-machine whine when used. Which I find very practical since it keeps other people at a respectable distance, even in dense crowds.

If anybody has Praktica or other East-German camera (parts) gathering dust on his/her attic, I'm always interested.

And no this post isn't OT, how else should I get textures or documentation than with a camera ? It's a tool of the freebie trade ...

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