Camera collection goes under the hammer

Camera collection goes under the hammer

One man's lifetime collection of more than 500 cameras is going up for auction this weekend in Auckland.

It's thought to be the country's largest sale of its kind - piquing interest from across the globe.

Sierd Bouma had a life-long passion for cameras - a passion born out of a thirst to understand how things work.

"Dad didn't believe in singles. If he had one, he'd have two. And normally he'd have more than two," says his daughter, Greta.

The family moved from Holland to New Zealand more than 30 years ago, and she recalls their house vividly.

"The house had corridors you'd walk through, to get to places. And every time you went up there you'd get lost in the collection looking at all the stuff."

Stuff that was collected while working and travelling as an electrical engineer for Shell.

While working in Venezuela, Mr Bouma ran movie projectors as entertainment for the expat community there.

His family has some of the collection that is most precious, but the rest are under the hammer this weekend.

"The size of the camera collection - we'll probably see none other like this in New Zealand ever again," says Moss-Green auctioneer James Hogan.

And it's not going unnoticed, with interest from as far away as Greece and the Czech Republic.

It's probably because some of his cameras are one-offs - including the Rectaflex and the Voitlander.

The auction started today but because of its size it'll run through to tomorrow and later next week.

Newshub.