What is my camera / lens worth?

kds315* · Expire: 2021-03-09

http://www.mikeeckman.com/2016/02/what-is-my-camera-worth/

Opinions on that? (I hold mine back for a while, as I disagree with the author in a few points..)

Mos6502 · Joined: 20 Jun 2011 Posts: 961 Location: Austin

I skimmed through it. Didn't see anything major to disagree with. Most old cameras aren't worth much. Rare does not equal money. Most ebay sellers have no idea what they're looking at or what it is worth.

gud · Joined: 06 May 2017 Posts: 35

To summarise the article :

1. If your dad or granfather , who gave you camera\lens , used to have professional photos or\and professoional photo tools - use ebay to find the value of the stuff, you inherited.
2. If there are no photos in family archive - just sell all this garbage by 1$ a piece.

In my childhood , any family who had a camera of the Zenith level or higer , - always had a lot of stuff for development,post-processing and printing. Going with the film to the lab was extremely costly that days, so all such people kept all chemicals and tools at home and did development, post production and printing in the kitchen or bath .

Sciolist · Expire: 2021-04-16

"In order to use eBay for a realistic appraisal of your item, you must check the “Sold listings”"

You give a fair appraisal of the sold listings. Personally, I ignore the "Buy it now" sales and just look at the items sold competitively, at auction, for an idea of price. This price of course, can then be used as a guide for purchasing on "Buy it now". Although none of it is an exact science, and nor does purely looking at price guarantee value for money, or good service.

fuzzywuzzy · Expire: 2013-11-30

Not sure a fancy writeup boosts the selling price. A nice presentation wouldn't convince me to spend an extra dollar over a low effort listing.

Admittedly I'm buying stuff to shoot not to collect. I wonder what the ratio of shooters/collectors is?

TrueLoveOne · Expire: 2013-12-24

.......i can't see the page!

Mos6502 · Joined: 20 Jun 2011 Posts: 961 Location: Austin

jamaeolus · Expire: 2015-08-20

I have to agree with mos6502.

Sometimes you get treasures sometimes trash but usually a pretty good chance it will be OK. Some makes are obviously better made and likely to be good (eg Asahi ) Sometimes you gamble and lose. I have several GDR lenses with really stiff helical grease. Minolta's and Konica's with oil on the blades. Most people are unwilling to bid very high on an "as is" example that is poorly described. Good descriptions can definitely help your sale.

visualopsins · Expire: 2025-04-11

Need opinion of target audience member, not the experts here! : lol:

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

I agree with most of what he says, but eventually, all a casual seller with no specific knowledge of cameras can do is to give a good description and provide enough photos, so that the buyers could figure out what's going on. Throwing in words like professional, rare, or mint, will not help their case.

Lightshow · Joined: 04 Nov 2011 Posts: 3669 Location: Calgary

If you are trying to maximize profit, and your item is in good condition, and desirable, a good description and good clear well exposed pictures(Why is it so hard for sellers of photography equipment to provide good pictures?) can draw more action to your sale, on the other hand, if it's not desirable or in poor condition, you may be better off being vague.

The article is ok, saying that there is only one vintage camera worth collecting(more or less what was said) was inaccurate at best.
I think all one has to do is search ebay as he spoke of, for each item, compare items look for differences, if there are, was it a different year? a different model? a change in design? a fake? etc... if you can't find an explanation, or the exact model, then by all means, ask a forum, please don't jump strait to the forum and ask us to do the work for you.... unless you have a large collection on your hands.
If a person is not into photography, and doesn't know where to start? take pictures and post them on a camera forum and ask "what do I have and what's worth what" and add your intentions, sell, keep, use... and never take one person's word on a low value and sell it cheap.
This may not look like much, but price can surprise you. which is worth more???

http://collectiblend.com/Cameras/Leitz/Leica-I-Mod-A-(4-digits-Number).html
or

http://collectiblend.com/Cameras/Leitz/Leica-I-Mod-A-(Anastigmat).html

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

Elmar Lang · Joined: 11 Apr 2012 Posts: 103

In my opinion, the best would be to contact an auction house, in this case specialized in photography and/or technical instruments.

In Europe, there are Westlicht and Dorotheum (Vienna); Auction Team Breker (Cologne, Germany), etc. etc.

It just needs to email the proper department, with good pictures in attachment and read their response.

Besides a possible, relatively low estimate price, the Auction houses, through their clients' list, advertising and specialized interests of collectors and photographers, will do the rest, often with surprisingly good result.

A seller, usually pays a reasonable percentage to the auctioneers.

I'm a collector in a different, non photographic field and to satisfactorily dispose of what wouln't be of my interest anymore, I usually give the pieces to auction houses.

Ebay, in my opinion, is not a good way to valuate a piece, because also the sold-listing, often is not to be trusted in full.

Best wishes,

E.L.

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

jamaeolus · Expire: 2015-08-20

I think for any reasonably common item ebay research is the best way to find out value. It's pretty much worldwide. If you have a rare or unique item value will be hard to find anywhere. If you want to sell it you will find PDQ what it is worth at auction. If you want to keep it unless it is extremely valuable then auction with reserve. Yes the sold listings CAN be manipulated to a certain degree on semi rare items.

Mos6502 · Joined: 20 Jun 2011 Posts: 961 Location: Austin

There are really just two problems with looking up values on ebay.

1: non-paying bidders might bid prices up to ridiculous prices, but the sold listings won't tell you this. You'll just see the unreasonably inflated price. This can also happen with BIN, now that ebay no longer shows the actual sale price, and just the listing price.

2: Items which are actually rare often go for less money than they'd really be worth. Items which aren't actually rare at all, but which are just uncommon enough to fool people into thinking they're hard to find often go for absurdly high prices (Triotars, Edixagons, etc.). The problem with the rare stuff is, the few people who actually know what it is and will pay for it, often aren't watching ebay, consequently some really obscure stuff sometimes sells for next to nothing. I have bought a couple rare items for very little, but only made the mistake of selling something rare on ebay once.