The Making of a Camera Collector

G'day, my name is Holger Schult and I am a crazy camera collector. Life began for me in post-war Germany as a press photographer of the 60's, capturing images of the British Queen, the Beatles and other famous visitors to my birthplace in Hamburg, 1945.

When the Collecting Bug Bites

I met a young lass named Anke in a darkroom, and our relationship 'developed ' and we married in 1967, deciding to honeymoon in Australia. We loved it and decided to emigrate to a little town in Victoria called Bendigo. Our sons, Patrick and Rodney were eventually born and raised in Melbourne, the capital of Victoria. After cleaning eggs on a chicken farm, and stint making fan belts for Dunlop, our little family moved to Melbourne where we became naturalised Australians. After a while I then returned to the photographic industry eventually becoming production supervisor for Pacific Film Laboratories. I then went out on my own, specializing in speedway photography around Victorian speedway tracks. It was during this time that I caught the camera collecting bug. . However, the urge to collect cameras and photographic related items was so great that the idea for a private Photographic Museum was born over the next twenty five years. Being members of various national and international camera preservation societies for many years, Anke and I have traveled the world in our search for interesting pieces for our museum. Our thoughts are that digital photography has taken over and we must do our best to preserve all those beautiful cameras of yesteryear. The museum is still growing. With the generous help of friends, many wonderful cameras have already been resurrected, or "Saved from the tip". Our museum is located at our home at the outer Melbourne, in the foothills of the Dandenong Ranges, Victoria.

So, Anke and I need your help. Do you have that special piece of photographic history may be right for our museum? If you have any Wooden cameras, broken or not, with brass lenses or without, in any condition, stereo cameras (two or more lenses), novelty cameras, old Wooden movie cameras or any gear from old camera studios or shops, etc., as shown on this homepage, we will pay you a fair price for any interesting items. In fact, we would be interested in anything that is old and photographic, including advertising and interesting photographs or black and white negatives (especially people holding cameras). you can contact us in English or in Deutsch.