Sell a kit or break it up??

Gardener · Joined: 22 Sep 2013 Posts: 950 Location: USA

I, on the other hand, think that this kit will not get one penny more than the top price for the lens alone.

philslizzy · Joined: 07 Aug 2012 Posts: 4748 Location: Cheshire, England

visualopsins · Expire: 2025-04-11

cooltouch · Joined: 15 Jan 2009 Posts: 9097 Location: Houston, Texas

Thanks for the feedback, folks. Well, I'll know soon enough, and it won't cost anything for me to try listing it as a kit. If it doesn't sell after giving it a decent interval of availability, then I'll break it up. Most likely I'll wind up with another case for photo gear as well.

Oh, and that ring flash has sold in the past on eBay for as high as $150. Perhaps not anymore with the wide availability of all the Chinese made LED ringlights. But it'll still sell for a decent amount -- in addition to the top price for the lens. And the Nikon N80 was an advanced amateur model film camera when it was first offered. This one has received almost no use, so whatever N80s go for on eBay, this one should fetch. In addition to the top price for the lens.

So obviously I don't share this pessimism.

bychance · Joined: 24 Apr 2013 Posts: 345 Location: Kent, England

Michael, I think I have a good approach to the general decision making process here. I think before making up ones mind it is utterly crucial to sit, quietly sipping a good single malt or similar and ponder.

This sometimes takes hours if your lucky Cool

Steve.

cooltouch · Joined: 15 Jan 2009 Posts: 9097 Location: Houston, Texas

Good idea, Steve. No single malts handy, curse the luck. I wonder if a few pints of a good porter wound suffice.

justtorchit · Joined: 12 Oct 2009 Posts: 269 Location: St. Louis, MO

Another for breaking kits up when selling. As others here have stated, if your kit involves anything beyond manufacturer "kit" gear like the traditional intro zooms (18-55mm, 55-200mm, etc.), your selection of items will be lost on others as their ideal kit may not match your selections. I personally tend to buy kits because I am interested in one of the items and can usually get the whole kit for the cost of that one item alone, then sell off the other items individually which ultimately reduces the cost of the original item I wanted. Again, this is my personal general understanding and there certainly are exceptions to this rule.

Michael, wow, nice setup! The fact that it has the whole case, and foam to match, to me, lends itself to this being a good candidate for a kit. Though I can find myself also sharing Gardener's thoughts, that this thing could go off, on auction, for about $250-300, about the cost of the Dine by itself. I'm in the market for a Dine but I couldn't justify the added cost for the N80 (Though I owned this camera for several years and loved it dearly), and the ringflash which I would likely little, if at all. I still think it's no sweat to try since you have time!

Attila · Expire: 2025-11-18

cooltouch · Joined: 15 Jan 2009 Posts: 9097 Location: Houston, Texas

David, you've described a practice I've followed for the past 25 years or so. But I would not generally call them "kits." Outfits would be more appropos. Often, I'll buy an outfit to obtain one or two items in it, then I'll sell the rest off. It is not unusual at all for me to end up with the item or items for free -- sometimes I'll even do better than that -- I'll end up turning a profit while still getting what I was after for free. I've done this many times. Most recently, I bought a fairly well used old Canon F-1 with a 55mm f/1.2 SSC. I wanted that lens but I already owned a couple of old F-1s, and both were in better shape than this oine. I talked the guy down on the price and ended up buying the "outfit" for what I later sold just the camera for. So I got an FD 55mm f/1.2 SSC for free. I love it when I can pull stuff like that off. When I bought that 55mm f/1.2, I sold another FD 55mm f/1.2 I had, a first model, chrome nose, which I wanted less than the SSC. I had bought the chrome nose 55/1.2 with a T90. I sold that 55/1.2 for more than what I paid for that outfit, so I wound up getting the T90 for free plus about another $30. So because of this sort of maneuvering, I've wound up with a T90 and a 55/1.2 SSC for free, plus enough green to take the wife and me to a Chinese buffet for dinner. Woot!

But this kit is different because it was sold new as shown -- it wasn't an assemblage that someone put together. Now, frequently you'll see the Dine kits broken up where the lens and sometimes the lens and the flash are sold together. That's how I found mine. I found the lens and flash at a local camera shop. The lens is a Vivitar S1 105/2.8 with the Dine labels for the teeth. For some reason my Vivitar wasn't relabeled a Dine and neither was the flash. But the set had paperwork, which included Dine instructions for a Nikon N60, so that's how I know it was originally part of the Dine kit. I paid good money for my lens and flash -- $200, but considering what just the lens sells for, I thought that was a very fair price.

You know if I don't have any luck selling it as a kit, I'm seriously thinking about keeping that N80. There's something about it that I just like; hard to explain. I have an F4, so I've got AF for Nikon covered, but still, I just like it. I think it's because it's lightweight and compact -- not a huge monster like the F4 -- but it also just feels comfortable in my hands. Ergonomics score high with me. After looking through the N80s insruction manual, there isn't much I would need that it can't do.