Look at the price of this OM-2 Zuiko in 1982!

[stingOM]

http://www.quoka.de/hifi-audio-tv-video-foto/foto-und-zubehoer/olympus-om-2n-cat_66_7290_adresult_47800375_pic_40016616.html

[cooltouch]

Well, back in 1982, that would have been Duetsche marks, right? I found this site that gives historical conversions from DM to USD.

http://www.history.ucsb.edu/faculty/marcuse/projects/currency.htm#tables

The annual average for 1982 was 2.43DM/USD. So, 1056DM/2.43 = 434.57USD, which sounds about right for a camera shop's price for an OM-2N with 50/1.4 Zuiko.

Pretty high compared to the mail order prices that were advertised in the backs of US photo mags back then, but not out of line compared to what small photo shops charged.

[LucisPictor]

As a matter of fact, new cameras and lenses are much cheaper in the States than in Germany.
We often pay more in € than you guys have to pay in US$!

This is even worse with Adobe software...

[cooltouch]

Yeah but apparently we pay more for Mercedes Benzes and BMWs than you do And I don't see how Adobe's prices could get much worse. They're already at usurious levels. Adobe needs either some serious competition or a boycott. I recall the days of Lotus 1-2-3 back in the early 1980s. $400 a copy or thereabouts and they got away with it for years until clone software started hitting the market, which forced Lotus to reduce prices. And where is Lotus now?

Back in 1983 I visited Japan. It was my goal to buy some photo equipment (Canon, specifically) while I was there, figuring that since Canon cameras were made in Japan, that Japan would be the place with the best deals. Boy was I wrong. I did buy a camera there -- a Canon A-1 -- and was rather saddened to find out that I could have bought the same camera mail-order in the US for about $50 less. Heh.

I visited Taiwan in 1994 and was thinking I'd buy some computer peripherals -- since that was where most of them were being made back then -- and come to find out that the prices in Taiwan were either no different or somewhat higher than the States. Oh well.

It occurred to me after my visit to Japan that its market is actually subsidizing the US market. Yes the US market is large, but it's also ultra competitive and simply too large to ignore. So these companies make up for their slim profits in the US by charging more in other markets. Or so my reasoning went.

[eggboy]

[Nesster]

... in 1984 Adorama wanted $190 for the OM2n and the 50/1.4 for $90
... in 1878 Adorama wanted $378 for an OM2 and a 50/1.4

The specific timing of the quote relative to the model's life span has a big effect on the price - by '85 the OM2n is not quoted by B&H, there's the OM1n, the OM2s, the OM3 and OM4...

[cooltouch]

Well, I'm having to rely on memory that's gotten rather fuzzy after so many years. Where are you finding the historical price data?

Makes sense that B&H wouldn't be showing new OM-2N's anymore in 1985. According to my records, the OM-2N was discontinued in 1984.

Despite the deep-discount mail-order prices that existed back then, if you walked into your typical small-town camera shop back in those days, I think you would have found that a lot of them actually charged LIST price for all their items. I can recall, back in about 1984 or so, I was in a local shop in Bakersfield, CA, where I lived at the time, and asking them if they could still get the Motor Drive MF for the Canon old F-1. They said they could see, but since it would be special order I'd have to pay in advance, and they wanted something like $800 for it. I declined and later found a used one at a camera show for about $150, which was what they were worth. But all this store's prices were like that. About all the business I did with that place back then was film purchases and processing. A couple years later I moved down to the LA area, and got to know some folks at a camera shop local to me. They had to discount in order to survive, but their prices were still well above what the NY mail order houses charged.

[cooltouch]

[eeyore_nl]