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Oldens, NYC


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My 1946 Leica iiic has a sticker inside from Oldens Cameras Broadway NYC - when I was chatting to Malcolm Taylor (highly recommended for UK repairs), who refurbished the camera for me, he mentioned that the shop was huge and had some issues with union recognition and staff representation that eventually led to the shop shutting (rather than recognise the unions!). Does anyone know anything further about this situation or the shop in general?

 

How old is/was the shop ?- would the camera have been sold there as new? How many iiic's were exported for foreign sales?- or is it more likely to have found its way to Oldens as a secondhand example?

 

Any info would be gratefully received.

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I purchased my first Leica -a used M4- at Olden in the early 70's. Back then it was always busy with photographers, loaded with great used stuff. The store looked ancient in the 70's looked like something out of the 30's, but back then it was one of NY's main photo stores.

 

I guess it fell on hard times. Maybe the rise of B&H and Adorama, eBay -whatever it was the last time I visited which was quite awhile back it was a shadow of it's former self. In it's glory days it was a really cool place for a young photographer to visit back before you had everything at your fingertips over the internet.

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I was a customer there in the 1970's great darkroom supply. I boght a vivitar series 1 70-200 or 210 there froma salesman who left and went to work with Ken Hansen. I still deal with Ken to this day. Do not know about the unions but that and Camera Barn were my main places to shop in the 70.s . Olden did have that bazaar feel to it .

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