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Supply and demand
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PostPosted: Thu Dec 05, 2019 10:30 pm    Post subject: Supply and demand Reply with quote

This popped into my google "for you" feed. Apparently google thinks I have way more money than I do. Some people have more money than sense IMHO.

https://petapixel.com/2018/03/12/leica-camera-sells-2-96-million-auction-new-record/


PostPosted: Fri Dec 06, 2019 8:05 am    Post subject: Re: Supply and demand Reply with quote

jamaeolus wrote:
This popped into my google "for you" feed. Apparently google thinks I have way more money than I do. Some people have more money than sense IMHO.

https://petapixel.com/2018/03/12/leica-camera-sells-2-96-million-auction-new-record/

Quote:
These Leica 0 series cameras have been seeing a consistent price increase in recent years. Copies were sold for $435,000 in 2007, $1.89 million in 2011, $2.79 million in 2012, and now $2.96 million in 2018.

Sounds like pretty sane way of stashing your funds and protecting them from inflation.


PostPosted: Fri Dec 06, 2019 9:13 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Buy a camera or lens because you want to use it- not as an investment. In 20 years, no one may care anymore about old film cameras and lenses.

I suspect that the loss-of-interest by Japan's younger generation is causing the big drop in prices that I'm seeing on some fairly rare lenses and cameras.

Canon 5cm F2: $50 at a show- needed a CLA, came out really nice; Canon 50/2.2, $80 Ebay- ready to use; Canon 50/2.8 "Zebra", $60 Ebay, Canon 13.5cm F4 "uncoupled, RARE"- $50. - prices are way down. The 50/2.2 used to fetch $500 and more.


PostPosted: Fri Dec 06, 2019 9:27 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Collectibles can make for excellent investments, but they aren't without risk. I would argue that a bigger risk than the lack of interest of the younger set is when market corrections occur. Many collectibles' prices haven't recovered from the sharp market downturn of a decade ago. It isn't unusual to see high-end collectibles with 2019 evaluations that are still only about half what they were -- and sometimes less -- back in 2008 and 2009. When the bottom falls out like it did, it takes a long time for prices to recover.

The most valuable collectibles do seem to be largely immune from this sort of action, however, as that Leica sale indicates. Ferrari GTOs, Ford GT-40s, Hawker Sea Furies, and P-51 Mustangs, etc, seem to be pretty well immune.


PostPosted: Sat Dec 07, 2019 3:53 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

My hunting fields for the lenses are flea markets. Any time I go, I'm bringing something home, the lens prices are between $5 and $20. This year the supply became shallow, look like the attics are almost cleaned up. The same happened with old mechanical watches and fountain pens.
As for the storage, keep the glass dry and open for the light, sometime expose it to the sun in order to prevent the fungus development.
Good hunting!


PostPosted: Sat Dec 07, 2019 10:24 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

If it's a drug cartel looking for cash equivalence for trading, I wouldn't be surprised. There's no money quite like washed money, in the small portable form of a rare camera.


PostPosted: Sat Dec 07, 2019 12:06 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Time was, when eBay and similar were just getting started, one could sell or trade "internationally" at significant profit simply because collectors "overseas" didn't have easy access to "foreign" market cameras etc.

Nowadays, much of the collector market as it was has been flooded and a lot of low-end to mid-range equipment is changing hands for a tenth of what it did 30 years ago!

Of course, it could also be that the current generation(s) don't have the nostalgic attraction to the old brass and chrome cameras that we grey-beards lusted after when we were young and with the almost total demise of readily-available film processing (or chemicals and equipment to do it at home) there's little stimulus to acquire an old camera just to try it out.

This of course isn't necessarily true of old lenses, which can readily be adapted to many modern digital cameras, hence the upsurge in interest and prices for Helios-44 and various Industar lenses, amongst many others, Takumars, Rokkors, Hexanons, Zuikos, Nikkors, etc. etc., that could hardly be given away 20 years ago! First the change from screw-mount to various bayonet fittings, the proliferation of zoom lenses, then autofocus came along and the long-time manual-everything "standard prime" that came with almost every slr sold became unfashionable old hat!

How times change Wink