[X] My Assistant

[Bob Shaw]

I wonder if anyone can offer me some help?

An old friend, Stan Pearce, has just died. He was for many years active in the second-hand camera and optical business in Glasgow (he sold me my first 35mm camera in 1972!) and inherited many of the ex-WWII optical components which Charles Frank Ltd used to sell. He had a huge collection of old optical parts, ranging from brass fittings like tubes, grub screws etc right through to lenses of all sorts. These came from cameras, microscopes and binoculars too (and some of his stuff probably counts as low-level nuclear waste, thanks to the liberal amounts of radium which was painted on instrument dials during WWII!). Stan's widow would like to clear all this, but doesn't simply want it to be dumped if at all possible. She'd like to raise some money, too, but I suspect she'd be as pleased to know that Stan's stuff was going to a good home.

As well as the parts, Stan also had a collection of cameras and lenses - these ranged from plate cameras through to practically any other format you could imagine. He collected anything optical, and some of his items are probably pretty well unique.

If you have any ideas, then please get in touch!

Bob Shaw
shaw_bob@hotmail.com