What’s going on here?
»My Minolta Museum« has been established to present a personal collection of Minolta SLR gear. I bought my very first camera, a Minolta XG‑9, back in 1980, and I sticked to that brand ever since until I switched over to digital image taking more than 25 years later. This site is intended to be a visual showcase of my treasured cameras and lenses which still impress me due to their versatility and the fine workmanship involved.
Did/do you actually use all these cameras and stuff?
Well, no. I sold my XG‑9 when the Dynax (aka Maxxum) family of autofocus cameras entered the market and I obtained a Dynax 7000i in 1989 which was my companion for many years. Later, I upgraded to the 600si classic which was my ideal of a modern camera with traditional controls. These two cameras were the only ones that I used myself for more than a handful of film rolls. I bought all the others on occasion for my little collection because I liked their design and their important role in the Minolta product history. Yes, I am a collector and I’m happy to be the private curator of several tiny personal museums. This is a contagious disease, however, so don’t read on if you don’t like to be tempted to buy obsolete stuff... ;-)
Do you sell any of the vintage equipment shown here?
I do, but only in bundled lots, i.e. complete camera sets consisting of body, the matching lenses and accessory parts as listed on the individual camera pages. Offers for single items won’t be accepted or even answered. If you are interested in obtaining one of my cameras, please send me a mail.
Upon scrupulous examination of your pictures, I found out that some lens caps or other smaller accessory parts are actually missing?
No, you only found out that I was not careful enough sometimes when arranging the items on the table for taking photos of them. Later on, I realized all (?) of my mistakes myself, but I was admittedly too lazy to get through all the preparation work again in order to make new pictures...
In what condition are the items?
All of my photographic gear shows very little (if any) signs of use and I’m testing all mechanical functions (film transport, shutter, aperture ring etc.) at least once a year to prevent storage damage due to lack of use. There are no scratches on glass surfaces and there is no oil on the aperture blades and no fungus on the glass lenses. Furthermore, I do not smoke and there aren’t any cats or dogs in my household... ;-)
I guess that packing & postage go extra?
Yes.
I might be interested in obtaining parts of your collection, but I still have several questions that I don’t find answered here?
Great! Just drop me a note at ralph@my-minolta-museum.info; I will reply as soon as possible and to the best of my knowledge.
With what brand and type of camera are you taking photogaphs nowadays?
I really got tired of carrying around bulky hardware. So since 2006, I use Canon compact cameras (shame on me), mainly for illustrating the posts published in my personal blog. However, I also bought a previously owned SONY SLT-A58 in 2017 for which I keep (and don’t sell) my five fixed focal length Minolta AF lenses.
May I ask you some questions about other vintage Minolta gear (technical details, production date, prices etc.)?
Of course you may, but chances are that you won’t get an answer at all: I am neither a specialist nor a professional, I don’t do any researches and I won’t estimate the worth of the vintage camera collection somebody inherited from his father. Sorry to be explicit, but there are quite a few dedicated forums out there where you may post requests like these!
Last updated: 2025-06-25 at 7:26 AM