Cashing In on Forgotten Treasure

This story begins in typical fashion, with me being frugal. And it turned out, as these things often do: DIY projects work.

At the heart of this tale is the Fujifilm X100V digital camera. I’ve had an ongoing affair with it since it showed up on my doorstep more than a year ago. It sports a fixed-mount 35mm lens that’s a great choice for 90 percent of what I shoot.

But no partner is perfect. And there were situations when I wanted something a bit wider, not too much, but 28mms would be excellent. Fujifilm had the answer. The WCL-X100 II wide conversion lens with a magnification of 0.8X was exactly what I needed, and it’s highly rated. Glowing reviews included words such as, “an essential accessory.”

Great! The only downside is the $350 price tag plus tax. And if I wanted to get the 50mm as well, that would put me over $700 for the pair. So I closed the web page and went back to work.

A few days later, I was messing around in one of my photo accessory drawers. (Everyday folks would call this a junk drawer). But everything in mine has value that will be determined at the proper time. Just because I don’t need it right now, doesn’t mean its status won’t change in the future.

Case in point: my Canon wide converter WC-DC58 0.8X optic that has been cooling its glass since 2001. I bought it 20…