Ask Lemmy

I'm a photography nerd.

There's a bunch of rare and expensive cameras, of course, so I could probably just say "oh, probably anything from Leica".

But the real snobs go for turbo rare lenses. As a Nikon fan, I hope that I shall one day be allowed to the same airspace as the hallowed Nikkor 13mm f/5.6. The first ultrawide non-fisheye lens. 350 of these were made, each individually blessed by priests as they left the factory, or so the story goes. They cost an arm and leg - wait, in this economy, an arm and leg would probably be cheaper.

In amateur radio, making an Earth-Moon-Earth contact. That means bouncing your signal off of the moon, basically using it as a satellite. You generally need a big antenna array to do it. Also you need a very high quality amplifier to receive since the signal you get back from the mood is very weak. You can hear an echo of yourself delayed about 2.6 seconds, since the moon is about 1.3 light seconds away.

3 other cool nerds to play board games with consistently.

Any serious guitarists will let you know their holy grail.

It's not any guitar; it's another guitar.

The Imperator-Class Titan is the largest mini in Warhammer 40k.

I have fantasized about using one of these in an actual game ever since I learned of their existence in 8th grade.

I dream of one day finding an original Model M keyboard in a Goodwill or yard sale for like $10. Every time I'm in a thrift store I look over the electronics section JUST in case.

Also waiting for the day I find a random copy of Panzer Dragoon Saga for the Sega Saturn. Only 20,000 north American copies were made, which sounds like a lot but in video game numbers is insanely low. I've only ever seen it in the real world once at a gaming convention and it sold for $1,500.

Well, my hobby is searching for historical religious artifacts, so...

Woodworking: An entire log of American Chestnut.

About a century ago, the species was all but wiped out by a blight that came from Japanese chestnut. Some three billion trees died. The blight actually survives in the forest living on but not damaging oak trees, so American chestnuts are struggling to reclaim their historic habitats. The species is critically endangered and efforts to rehabilitate the population are underway, including trying to breed large surviving individuals or to genetically engineer blight resistant trees. Logging is of course completely out of the question.

American Chestnut is an excellent lumber, with many of the properties of white oak in a faster growing tree. It is straight grained, hard and strong, easy to saw and split, rot resistant due to tannins. A fantastic choice for indoor and outdoor furniture, structural timber, even telephone poles. Reclaimed chestnut timber from old buildings is highly prized, and what woodworker wouldn't love access to a few hundred board feet of freshly kiln dried American chestnut...if it was possible to ethically source.

In the typewriter community, the “holy grail” differs from person to person, but for me it was a 1930s Royal P equipped with a rare typeface called Vogue. Very, very rarely they’ll pop up from people who don’t know how significant that is, and that’s the only way to get one at a reasonable price - because those who do know what it is will ask thousands of dollars for it.

Eventually I found one for a comparatively cheap price (sub 1k), and the only reason someone else didn’t snap it up before I saw it was because the guy refused to ship it. Local pickup only. So I took the chance to drive the 10 hours round trip to snag it, and it sits proudly as the crown jewel of my collection:

For example, in the headphone world, the Sennheiser HE-1 headphones are said to be like the pinnacle of headphones and most expensive, costing $59000 for a pair.

Edit: added image

For me with gaming (both playing and dev), a Steam Deck. Never wanted anything more in my life, seeing people have them and barely use them hurts. But I'm on long-term sick leave and live paycheck to paycheck, not able to save anything and it doesn't look like that'll change anytime soon. And it's more than just wanting a cool thing, all I have is a shitty laptop from 2010 that barely plays 1080p video, and a TV I found outside that gets so warm that it's hard to sit in front of for longer than two hours at a time. The laptop has no battery so it has to be used with the charger connected all the time and it's too heavy to comfortably use anywhere but at a desk. I also have back and knee problems and having something like a Steam Deck would allow me to play and develop in bed or on my sofa and save me some pain.

I finally saw a Baltimore Oriole (bird) in real life at my feeder. Its was beautiful and vibrant and now I need to find another cool bird to look at.

I'm a book collector, sadly most of the books in my preferred address are, and forever, will be out of my reach. My holy grail is The Magus by Francis Barrett (1801), it's basically a guidebook to the occult. I've got a facsimile edition published in 1970 but I've never seen or heard of a original copy for sale - not that I've searched, I don't wish to see an old man cry.

Super subjective, but for my handtool woodworking, my grail is a pistol grip Stanley 610 drill. Do t know why, but ever since I saw one, I’ve wanted it!

TTRPGs. A cleared schedule

A 1959 Gibson Les Paul in to a Marshall Plexi.

Motivation. I lost it some time around 2015 and have been kinda just killing time before death ever since.

To celebrate the new millennium, German model train maker Märklin released a 1/87 scale electric locomotive with a body made out of platinum, with real rubys for the red taillights and other real materials such as windows made of real glass, wheels made of stainless steel and isolators of real ceramics. It's considered one of the most sought after railway models.

My hobby is (or rather was) collecting Seiko watches.

I stopped buying watches, but my holy Grail would be "The" Pogue. The original 6139-6005 yellow face automatic chronograph worn by Col. William Pogue on the Skylab mission.

Other than the NASA issued Omegas, this was his personal watch that he just took with him into space, as NASA didn't want the Astronauts to take their Speedmasters home and so they couldn't train as much with them.

This also was the first automatic chronograph in space, as no one had tried before if they would work without gravity (surprise, they did, as momentum is still very much a thing in space).

Here is a very nice write up by a very knowledgeable guy:

https://www.plus9time.com/blog/2017/12/24/the-true-seiko-pogue-chronograph-6139-6005

I don't care what the other nerds say. This is the Holy Grail for me:

As an old and broken skateboarder, I would love nothing more than a pump track within driving distance.

There are some great parks, but nothing with enough flow that I can just carve around to work up a sweat without have to push or climb a ramp to drop in all the time.

A debit card with limitless funds

I've started collecting 1:24 and 1:18 scale models of my favorite movie cars and I guess you could say my holy grail would be a 1:18 sized, 1985, Cumberland Grey, V8 Vantage Aston Martin, from 007's The Living Daylights (and recently, No Time To Die). That and the 1:18 Chevy Nova from Death Proof, without breaking my bank account.

I like collecting games, nothing crazy like graded games (graded anything is a scam) or like I have to have every game ever made for a specific console, I just like having a big shelf of games.

I really want a like new, in box green Halo edition original Xbox. People want stupid money for them but I just want to have one. I've got a good condition boxed regular black console and a boxed Halo 3 Xbox 360 but I reeeeally want the green OG.

Here's what people are trying to sell a NIB version for

Electronics / hardware hacking and development. I have a Saleae Logic Pro 8 which is probably the most expensive thing I've ever bought in a weight to cost ratio at £933 for 60g.

Works fantastically, though, and the analog function and high sample rate is what truly sets it apart from other analysers.

I don't have a personal need for a 16 channel analyser currently, so couldn't bring myself to cough up the extra £500 for that model.

I'll try to keep these both short.

Magic the Gathering - the "Power Nine"

There's 9 cards from the first few printings that were simply deemed too powerful. Once they were out in the real world, the folks in charge realized they weren't fun to play against, and resulted in wildly uneven games. In extreme cases, the opponent could lose without even getting a single turn. They've been banned from every format*, and have never been reprinted*. *Except of course when they are. https://mtg.fandom.com/wiki/Power_Nine

Model railroading (O-gauge). Lionel 770e Hudson

For O gauge size, the train everyone wishes they had in their collection is the 1937-1941 Lionel 770E. This was a super-unusual toy for its day, pretty much everything else had been aimed at younger children and a lower price point. Lionel decided to take a gamble and build a hyper realistic scale model that was aimed at young adults. It was honestly not a great seller in its day due to the high price point and the looming threat of WW2. But it was, and still is, considered one of the highpoints of the industry. You could argue that the current Lionel company is founded on this concept, as their VisionLine products are focused on ultra-realistic toys for grown ups (which will always be funny, as yes, our track has 3 rails). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOdDw0-Tflg

I'm really just starting to get into audio and that's kind of by accident.

I actually started fixing electronics, and then some good quality audio equipment came into my life. I didn't know it was good, I thought my little piece of crap bose was awesome but holy moly no, in retrospect. Really all I wanted to do was to fix the obvious minor issues and sell it all. But I do test things meticulously before I sell them.

My first experience was listening to Stevie Wonder As and initially running up to the speakers because I thought I was hearing noise or distortion or something. No, it just turned out there was detail in the music I literally had never heard.

Well I moved that set down the line and sold it because another amazing Yamaha receiver and sub set came into my life, and then two weeks later I got some amazing studio monitor speakers for 10 bucks. Whoever priced them had no idea what they were. And they sound even more amazing in my little apartment than the other setup.

So I guess what I'm telling you all is my weird audio journey that I didn't mean to get into, and now I've become the thing I have always despised, an audiophile.

So basically just drive a dump truck starting with around $180,000 up to my place and then I can get a clean chain of great audio gear, and the appropriate reference audio to play upon it.

Also somebody to teach me what the hell I'm doing with audio stuff. But they can just scoop a few bricks of money off the pile from the dump truck.

rock band 4 legacy adapter. they stopped making them years ago and the prices went from 20 bucks to over 500 bucks. i had one and it broke because it used a shitty ass micro usb

I'm into fly fishing and the holy grail for many anglers is catching native brook trout. Most trout are stocked or introduced with wild reproduction. Brookies were plentiful at one time before the loss of habitat. There are those that crawl on their hands an knees through brush to catch a 6" fish out of a stream you can jump over

In the world of synthesisers, I’m going to say the Yamaha CS-80. Anyone who was introduced to synthesised music by listening to the Blade Runner soundtrack will recognise it. With its many tactile modulation options, it’s arguably the pinnacle of the synth as a performance instrument.