Found my granddad's 1958 repair log, the labor rates floored me

I was cleaning out my uncle's garage last month and found my granddad's old leather repair log from 1958. He ran a small camera shop in Dayton, Ohio and wrote down every job, parts cost, and labor time. What surprised me was that he charged $2.50 for a shutter overhaul and listed a Rolleiflex CLA at $6 even. I did the math and that's maybe $70 today, which is still cheap but not crazy. But then I saw he spent 3 hours on one sticky aperture blade job and only billed $4. The whole time he was working, he never charged more than $8 for any repair. I guess back then cameras were built to be fixed by anyone, not like the electronics we deal with now. Has anyone else come across old price lists or logs that made you rethink how you charge today?

1 comments

1 Comment

charles50818d ago

...and honestly that $6 CLA tells you everything about how they saw the work. It wasn't about squeezing every dollar out of a job, it was about keeping the community's cameras running. My dad had a similar log from his TV repair days in the 70s and he'd spend two hours on a set for like ten bucks. The thing is, parts were cheap and people didn't expect you to act like a surgeon, you just fixed the thing. Now we're all scared to charge less than a hundred for anything cause that's just what everyone does. But those old logs show the real cost was in the time and the knowledge, not in the rate. Makes you wonder if we've lost something in how we value the actual craft.