When I started working on CollectiBlend, my main driving factor was a general lack of online price-guides for collectible cameras. Of course, there were several great books for serious collectors, however for occasional buyer or seller, spending several hundred dollars on a good price guide like McKeown’s (a Bible of price guides) was not an option. At that time only few online resources were available with rather limited content:
- camprice.com by Douglas St. Denny which, unfortunately, was a paid membership only;
- antiquecameras.net by Dan Colucci which provided mostly Rollei prices;
- photographica-world.de by Klaus-Dieter Müller, which was outdated, and didn’t have descriptions or photos.
While all these resources were great for even amature collectors, they weren’t a good fit for a sporadic buyer. I was hoping James McKeown will publish his 13th edition online, but this wasn’t happening year after year. Thus, the CollectiBlend was born as some sort of an open source price guide, showing previous auction sales, allowing visitors to add prices and images. I was hoping this will set an example for reputable book guides to get online. Well, after nine years of waiting, the wait is over! As you may have already heard, James McKeown is finally
considering going online this year! If this happens, it’s going to be a great additional source for all camera collectors across the world.
With all that said, don’t worry, I am not planning to drop developing CollectiBlend, as I believe variety of sources is always beneficial to the public. Moreover, a lot of wonderful people are helping with the content, and a
lot of collectors use the site to keep their inventory. It would be unfair to stop supporting the community. The sales data is being constantly gathered, the information about cameras is being updated, and the new functionality is added for collectors from time to time. I may not be visible on the forum all the time, only because I am concentrated on the site content more than on forum questions.
Oh, and have a Happy New Year, everybody!