I was bummed, yesterday, when I tested my new Zenith VC 1810 only to discover it didn’t work. I left scathing negative feedback for the seller, but it didn’t make me feel as good as I had hoped it would, so I found myself, late last night, back on eBay looking at other cameras.

What I was looking for was a Sony HVC 2800. Before I tested the VC 1810, I set up my Sony HVC 2400 because I know it works. That way, if there was a problem with the VC 1810, I would know it was a problem with the camera and not the VTR, TV, or any other part of the system. As I was plugging in the HVC 2400, I noticed how much nicer it was than the VC 1810, particularly the cable. The Zenith cables on both the VC 1800 and VC 1810 are thin, stiff, and kind of cheap-feeling.

The cable on the Sony, on the other hand, was thick, soft, and felt like what you would expect from a professional camera. That got me thinking about how I had been looking for an HVC 2800, but hadn’t had any luck. I had found another Sony BetaMax camera on eBay a while back, but I couldn’t remember which model it was. So, at about 11:30 p.m. last night, I went out to the garage to see what it was, and to my surprise, found it was an HVC 2800. I paid $10 for it, and it didn’t work when it arrived, so it was shelved.

Just out of curiosity, I decided to hook it up to see if it would work, and to my great surprise and delight, it worked! It didn’t work perfectly, but it worked when it hadn’t worked before. It was a Christmas miracle! I wanted to see how far my miracle went, so I set up the VC 1800, and it worked, too! What the hell was going on? These cameras didn’t work when I got them, and now they suddenly do? If those two worked, maybe the 1810 would work, too, so I hooked it up, but just as it had hours before, it just displayed static. I was just pressing my luck at that point, and I didn’t really expect it to work.

Fast forward to this morning, I saw an estate sale here in town that looked like a carefully curated hoard. It didn’t look like anything I would be interested in – car parts and antiques – but I always enjoy wandering through strangers’ houses, and so does Bonnie, so we went. As soon as I walked in, I found an old camera light that I wasn’t sure I wanted, but someone else was looking at it, so I picked it up and carried it around the house with me, just in case it grew on me.

I ended up in a bedroom where I found a GE 9-9806 VHS camcorder in like-new condition. They wanted $40 for it, but I really didn’t want to pay that much for yet another camera of unknown condition. It was in its original case, had all of the cables, battery charger, and even the instruction manual. I looked through the case, closed it up, and put it back. I walked through the house some more, and found Bonnie, and we went back to that bedroom.

I showed her the camera, and while we were standing there discussing it, a short, older, Hispanic woman said, “Are you going to buy that?” pointing to the camera case and light I was holding in my left hand. “I’m thinking about it?” I said, while thinking, what the fuck is it to you? Mind your fucking business, bitch. Then, she asked me, in an accusatory tone, if I had taken the light out of the camera case. Confused, I looked at it and said no. Bonnie told her I found it by the front door. Why would I have taken it out of the case? Why wouldn’t I have put it in the case?

She asked me if I had a ticket. I didn’t know what she was talking about. She said, “You can’t leave the room with that if you don’t have a ticket.” Her tone became increasingly stern and agitated. It wasn’t as if anyone explained the arbitrary rules of this estate sale to me when I walked in the door. I told her to write me a ticket. She asked what my name was and then wrote it on a carbonless receipt from a receipt pad. Then, she asked to see the prices on both items. I showed her and she wrote them next to a description of each item.

We left the room and looked around the house once more. As I was standing in the living room, I heard my name and turned around to find that horrible little woman in the kitchen talking shit about me to someone else. That was it. I had had enough. I went to the front door to leave. I didn’t want to give these people my money, but I also didn’t want anyone else to have the camera or light, so I paid for them and left. I was fuming. For the next few hours, I couldn’t calm down.

I was slighted, and I wanted retribution. Bonnie kept telling me to let it go, but I couldn’t. I was angry. I went out to the garage and set up the HVC 2800 and VC 1800 just to see if they still worked. I wasn’t 100% sure I hadn’t dreamed that whole Christmas miracle last night. Both cameras worked, so I proceeded to set up my new purchase. Everything it needed was included, except a VHS tape, but I have plenty of those. I wasn’t planning to record onto a tape anyway, though, so it didn’t matter.

The camera worked flawlessly. I don’t think it had ever been used before. All of the cables were still wrapped as if they had left the factory this morning. The picture quality was pristine. The only problem I had was that there was no sound. Neither the onboard mic nor the external mic input worked. Eventually, I figured out that you have to put a tape in to activate the mic. That’s a weird feature.

Upon seeing how well the camera worked, all of the animosity I felt for the people in charge of that estate sale washed away, and I basked in the soft definition of my obsolete camcorder.

I spent the day hooking up and testing all of the various video cameras I’ve collected over the past few months. I think I’m up to 10. I only tested 7, though. I don’t have power supplies for three of them. Of the seven I tested, though, only one was knackered. It might work if I can find the proprietary A/V cable it needs to send out a signal, so I’ll look for one of them.

Don’t think for a second, though, that because I have ten old useless video cameras, my hunt is over. I won’t stop until I find a working Zenith VC 1800 and a Working Sony HVC 2500. In the meantime, my search has unearthed scads of accessories I had no idea existed or that I needed.