Just done a conversion to see how much a 4 x 400ft would cost now. Price based on £80 in 1977 you would have to pay £449.28 in 2016. Quite frightening.

Yes. But that time there was no alternative. If you wanted film at home, this was it, and you would be the coolest kid in town. Now you are just a crazy collector trying to explain why old film is wonderful and worth a crazy price.

There's still no alternative if it's film you like the look of.

You're right of course David,but £80 in 1977 was frightening!
When I started my apprenticeship in 1982, a time served skilled man then in my trade had a top line before deductions of £98 and this was a slightly better than average wage for the area and trade in Manchester at that time.

It's quite mad isn't it, i remember struggling to buy my first brand new feature Texas chainsaw, my grandad lent me the money and it took me some months to pay it all back, all £99.00 Thinking about it now it was,(and still can be) a very expensive hobby, but then so are all hobbies, this one is very unique though. If anyone said to me just a few months ago you'll be getting into 16mm by now i would have laughed as we were meant to be concentrating solely on 8. But once i got that machine back up and gave it a very quick going over and saw it in action i was hooked again.
Got my trusty 1200HD all set to be returned after a good going.

I think £80 in 1977 would have been about 3/4 months wages for me then, i was 16 and on real crappy pay. (not much better now)

I was on two pounds a week as a paper boy!😀😀😀

Still managed to buy some out of date silent K40 though and a very basic Halina camera. Ha ha.