Planning to dig up our 30-40 year-old Super 8 home movies to watch with family this Christmas, and Dad’s projector’s gone belly up. Craigslist to the rescue. Every time I deal with Craigslist, I’m amazed by the sheer number of flakes and false starts — people who say they have what you need and then never respond again, or who say they’re interested in what you have to sell, make an appointment, and never show up. But amongst the clowns, some kind soul generally comes through. Scored this 1960s vintage Sears Super Automatic for a song (though the replacement bulb is going to cost more than I paid for the projector).
The machine itself is a work of art. Loved the manual that came with, full of golden lines like “It’s easy to splice 50-foot rolls of 8mm film together on Sears 400-foot reels for full half-hour shows.” Easy-peasy! Can’t imagine why this wonderful technology died…
Update: Jim Strickland pointed out a great source for old bulbs and lamps : ETE Tubes — they found me a working bulb for 1/3 the price of other bulb vendors, and shipped it 2nd Day Air. Wonderful.