Ed Warner and team swung into action December, 2004 to sell more memorabilia from the estate of the late Larry Boccioletti. The team sold everything including the (kitchen) sink in a fast paced session featuring a wide range of darkroom, movie and low end camera gear! The heavy objects (two enlargers, the sink, a huge print dryer, and a vacuum easel/horizontal copy camera stand (actually a modified cine titling gizmo) were shown by photo only. Buyers made arrangements with the auction team to pick up their purchases at a later date.
Shown at left, Ed Warner holds up a movie film counter gadget used by film editors to find scenes in a film strip.
Bill Kantymir (below) and Mike Robinson (right, and below) acted as lot pickers, keeping the auction on track with snappy lot descriptions and commentaries.
The back room boys -- Bob Wilson and Clint Hryhorijiw, (right) handled the cash receipts and paperwork.
Shown on this page are just a few of 100+ shots I took during the auction action. For the first time ever, I ran down both sets of NiMH batteries. I took the last few shots with alkaline batteries - backup for my electronic flash.
The lovely old leather case with the purple velvet lining (above) came complete with a number of cut film backs.
Above are three views of an ancient paper cutter equipped with a circular cutting blade. The orange knob and heavy wire blade guard are an eye-catching part of this rare antique darkroom accessory.
Shown at right is a traditional guillotine style cutting board, only this one is "super sized" to handle really large prints. In the 1960s I worked in a Bell Canada training centre in Montreal. A polite caution was added to our much smaller guillotine by one of the staff: "Please do not litter the floor with your fingers". A timely warning indeed when using these devices.
And other darkroom goodies galore went under the hammer. Easels in various sizes, some photo paper, fast reading thermometers, contact printers, cut film holders and tanks, motors for the 1970s vintage paper print developing tubes used to economically process colour paper, plus many more gizmos and gadgets that brought back fond memories of darkrooms past to the bidders.
Some close-up shots of the film counter held up by Ed Warner in the first picture on this page. Built like a tank. If you look at the words cast into the crank portion at the far left, they say "Moviola Co. Hollywood California". It's an interesting display even if you never need to zip along a 'rush' film strip and find a scene for editing.
In later years, Larry was well known for buying/selling flash bulbs. The bulbs were sold to movie companies along with leased flash guns for those scenes featuring newspaper men on the job lugging pounds of speed-graphic cameras, plates and assorted gear. The flashgun battery case tubes, shown in the middle picture, often end up today converted to 'laser swords' for Star Wars affectionados.
No one can think of Larry without thinking of flash bulbs and movie projectors, so it was fitting that a number of projectors rounded out the various types of gear auctioned this evening.
A bunch of heavy duty tripods, both wooden and cast metal, and telescoping light stands were sold.
The heavy tripods were ideal for telescope stands as well as large cameras.
