Leica Prices

[MarkP]

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It is quite useless doing historical Leica price comparisons in $$. Leica is a German product and the prices are in DMark and Euro. (Reichsmark if you go far enough back ) USD prices introduce the fluctuations of the currency market in addition to different rates of inflation on both sides of the ocean. Too many variables to draw any conclusions.

 

Jaap, for Americans it is still valid as these were the actual prices they were paying then and now.

[jip]

Jaap' date=' for Americans it is still valid as these were the actual prices they were paying then and now.[/quote']

 

Yea but that has nothing to do with Leica, more with the bad economic value of the dollar.

[jip]

Also I think buying second hand for lenses is not bad and actually good, if you see how much people are complaining of faulty lenses, wen bought new you can better buy a mint second hand, which will obviously be not defective from the manufacturing process or the previous owner would've already dealt with it.

[MarkP]

Yea but that has nothing to do with Leica, more with the bad economic value of the dollar.

 

But that is what they paid then and are paying now. So as it is their money they are spending to buy Leicas it has everything to do with 'Leica Prices' because that is the price.

[MarkP]

Also I think buying second hand for lenses is not bad and actually good, if you see how much people are complaining of faulty lenses, wen bought new you can better buy a mint second hand, which will obviously be not defective from the manufacturing process or the previous owner would've already dealt with it.

 

Unless the previous owner is dumping it because it's a lemon .

 

Don't get me wrong - as you can see from my post above I do indeed buy second-hand lenses.

[jaapv]

Jaap, for Americans it is still valid as these were the actual prices they were paying then and now.

 

Yep, but you would have to make a full analysis of the development of domestic prices and the price of imported goods to draw any conclusion.

I would run into the same problem trying to say anything about the development of USA product prices. For instance American cars went from super-luxury vehicles to competively priced over here.

Another example is that to Europeans Australian incomes are exceedingly high - but so is the cost of living.

Or, close to my heart, the price of holidays in Africa fluctuates wildly to Euro-earners, as the rates are in USD and dictated by the conversion rate of the Rand and the Pula to the USD.

I would submit that prices can only be judged in the currency of the country of origin.

[plasticman]

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I tend not to comment in these sorts of threads as I normally consider the contribution I'm about to make to be pretty asinine, but I can't resist the contrast.

 

First off, I do want to emphasize that it's up to everyone to pretty much spend their money exactly the way they want. My own circumstances and perspective changed when I had kids the last five years: not only did I have less money to throw around on my hobbies, but increasingly I took less pleasure in seeing rows of expensive lenses and cameras on my shelves.

 

Other perspectives also changed and (without wanting to turn this into a film vs digital debate) I became increasingly disillusioned with the digital path and was taking far more pleasure in the longevity and diversity of what was available in film photography (I'd been totally clueless about this until less than seven or eight years ago).

 

The short story is that I sold my digital cameras (replacing them with a simple Olympus EP-L5 and a Voightländer 0,95) and sold most of my Leica lenses keeping just a small core of Summicrons (and a Noctilux - which I keep mostly because selling it would be a hassle). I did buy some expensive medium format cameras (I have a fetish for new-in-box equipment), but I now have a range of film equipment that doesn't duplicate functionality: half-frame Olympus Pens, 35mm Leicas, 120 6x4,5 Mamiya and 6x6 Hasselblad and Mamiya cameras, and I try to use all of them in rotation, leaving nothing unused on the shelf for any period of time.

 

And here's the final part of the puzzle: I can occasionally add to the range of cameras serendipitously without spending thousands of dollars. The other day I was walking past a market stall and my eye was caught by a camera-case with an Olympus logo. Inside was an OM-1n in really great condition: unmarked in any way and apparently totally functional. I bought it for 200 swedish crowns - about $25, and at home I dug through an old box to find a 50mm 1,8 Zuiko lens that had belonged to my dad, and which was also in perfect condition. I've been using the camera with great pleasure all week.

 

Like someone else in the thread, I also tend to use coffees as a way to measure my expenditure. Around here in Stockholm a latté costs about 50 crowns, so after four days of skipping the luxury of a café-stop on the way to work I'd 'paid' for the new camera. I think at local prices it would take more than 300 years to do the same for a new Leica M.

[jaapv]

I tend to use the price of a chicken in the supermarket as a comparison standard

[hamey]

One think we all agree on this wonderful forum is Leica Cameras and Lenses are beautiful, however on Leica prices... I think nowdays is based for the luxury market and certainly not it's technology.

 

If you do notice, Japanese Digital Cameras are getting better and better, but their prices are getting cheaper.

On the other hand Leica is the opposite and theirs are GOING UP.

 

Thank goodness I started years ago.

 

Ken.

[Guest Mr. B]

It is quite useless doing historical Leica price comparisons in $$. Leica is a German product and the prices are in DMark and Euro. (Reichsmark if you go far enough back ) USD prices introduce the fluctuations of the currency market in addition to different rates of inflation on both sides of the ocean. Too many variables to draw any conclusions.

 

I don't care what the DMark or Euro price of the equipment was. I was just responding to the other entry as to what I paid for my equipment.

Mr. B

[250swb]

I was going through some old receipts and I found an invoice for the new M6TTL and 35 Summicron and UV filter I bought in January 2003 (my first Leica purchases). The prices I paid were:

 

M6 TTL GBP 1,275

35 Summicron GBP 595

UVa GBP 33

 

I make that almost exactly a third of the current prices (assume the M6 is now an M7) . 300% inflation in 11 years! I wish I had bought all my kit in 2003, or that my income had trebbled since then.

 

I'm not sure this is a realistic comparison with the trend?

 

In 2003 when you bought your TTL it had gone out of production the previous year, and as we know prices 'mellow' for that alone, and equally your 35mm Summicron had been in production for a long time by then, and again dealers pull back on the prices with long running stock. So although you bought them new, the heat of the market was off, allowing possible Leica and dealer discounts to get rid of older stock. I remember my TTL was bought when production was current and it cost something like £1600.

 

A neat ten year comparison would be my MP, which I bought new when stocks first got to the UK in March 2004. That cost £1988 from a Leica dealer. Today from the same dealer an MP body is £3235, so it has increased £1247 in ten years.

 

Steve

[MarkP]

A neat ten year comparison would be my MP, which I bought new when stocks first got to the UK in March 2004. That cost £1988 from a Leica dealer. Today from the same dealer an MP body is £3235, so it has increased £1247 in ten years.

 

Steve

 

And the cost of a loaf of bread, or a litre of milk, has more than doubled over the last ten years

[caymanlawyer]

"In 2003 when you bought your TTL it had gone out of production the previous year, and as we know prices 'mellow' for that alone, and equally your 35mm Summicron had been in production for a long time by then, and again dealers pull back on the prices with long running stock."

 

It is true the TTL had just gone out of production (it was because this was going to be the last mechanical, focal plane cloth shutter Leica that I bought it), but I am not sure I agree regarding the 35 Summicron price. It is still for sale today as a current production model, and the price now (GBP 1,787 VAT exc) is x3 the (GBP 595) price I paid. I also bought a UVa filter. The price then, GBP33, is again almost exactly one-third of the new price (GBP 100 now).