Information to bid on a lens?

[~lumiere]

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I am wondering how much information someone interested in buying a lens on ebay might need before bidding. I was surprised to see that a Noctilux jsut sold for $6,100 only showing a picture of the lens with caps on, the lens resting on a Leica box without providing any information on the optics, the barrel or a serial number --I requested pictures and more detail to no avail. I am very interested in hearing your thoughts about whether you would bid on a lens based on one non-specific picture. The auction that I am describing is shown below.

 

Leica 50mm F0 95 Noctilux M ASPH Lens Black | eBay

[spydrxx]

Having bought & sold lots of camera gear on Ebay for a number of years, including a couple of Noctiluxes, I would tell you that you need to ask lots of questions and particularly for higher value goods. The seller may in reality be ignorant of what is expected by sophisticated buyers, or may be lazy or (unusual) unscrupulous. Although Ebay has instituted some rather interesting policies to further protect both buyers and sellers from each other, it is still a marketplace in which you can't personally inspect the goods prior to purchase....so buyer beware. And sellers bewareof unscrupulous buyers. A serious, well informed seller will usually acommodate reasonable questions well before closing a sale. I remember one, from whom I was interested in buying an R8, actually telephoned me to talk to me about the details of what he was selling, including info on some items he was plannning to sell but hadn't yet put up, just in case I might be interested. So my general advice is after your research, buy from the good decent guys and pass up the unknowledgable or unresponsive others...you'll sleep better at night.

[darylgo]

The seller has zero feedback, that is enough information to find another seller or buy from another source. I like to try the optics on my M's before purchase, the last one was at a dealer who let me take the lens along with his new sample and shoot both. The cost at the dealer was several hundred dollars more than ebay. I was glad to pay the premium knowing the sample was excellent, focused well on my calibrated rangefinder and did not appear to need any further CLA.

[Jennifer]

I may well have been lucky, but I've bought 4 Leica lenses through eBay without any real problems. The front element of the 21 SEM started to rattle within the first few days of me getting it, but given it had only been bought new 6 months earlier from Leica Mayfair it was still under warranty and they fixed it for free. The 75 Lux is in Wetzlar for coding and CLA, but I'd anticipated having to do that and the £400 it's costing me was reflected in the purchase price.

 

As regards pre purchase questions. If not stated in the blurb or viewable from the photographs I always ask the vendor to state the condition both mechanical and cosmetic for the record and I always ask for the serial number, that way you can usually track the item's provenance. Also, I'd only ever pay through PayPal. One eBay seller, ostensibly selling a Lux 21, side stepped my request for the serial number and despite offering PayPal settlement in the 'terms and conditions' went on to demand payment via bank transfer from the winning bidder. I rather suspect there was either no lens behind the offer or if there was it wasn't the vendor's to sell.

 

I do look at feedback both for the obvious negatives, but also the volume and type. So it a seller has a history of albeit all positive feedback for bits and pieces at say £10-£30 I'm a bit wary when he suddenly has a £6,000 Noctilux on offer. That being said I bought a pristine 28mm Elmarit from someone with minimal feedback at a very good price perhaps because others had been put off bidding.

[~lumiere]

Thank you all for your feedback. I have been wanting to buy a Noctilux (and a couple of other Leica lenses) but I would like to understand the risk factors associated with these purchases before placing bids. Thanks for your guidance on this.

[algrove]

If you are from France or in Canada, there are dealers who get in items from time to time which might give you more comfort thsn on eBay. I know of one such dealer in Toulouse I have purchased from directly.

[epand56]

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I've bought a number of lenses in the last six years, both on eBay and here on the Forum, and have always made good and satisfying purchases. Only one time, in the beginning, I was cheated on eBay with an Elmarit 90/2.8 that I've payed for and never seen in my hands. But I acted dumb and sent the money via money transfer which I learned is the smarter way to loose our own money. In fact this never happened again. I've always purchased for lenses with many different pictures and after a message exchange with the seller.

I've also sold different lenses and found on the other side of the net many real gentlemen.

I think buying on line from people abroad is always a risk, but that's it. I had the chance to buy lenses at reasonable prices, which I couldn't afford at their original price.

[jankap]

+1

Jan

[alan.y]

I do look at feedback both for the obvious negatives, but also the volume and type. So it a seller has a history of albeit all positive feedback for bits and pieces at say £10-£30 I'm a bit wary when he suddenly has a £6,000 Noctilux on offer. That being said I bought a pristine 28mm Elmarit from someone with minimal feedback at a very good price perhaps because others had been put off bidding.

 

+1. This particular Noctilux seller with 0 feedback is most likely a scammer. Lazy, too--didn't bother to post any serious photo or description.

 

Other more experienced scammers have taken to hijacking legitimate accounts. So yes, look at their feedback history for patterns of recent activity. If they have regularly sold high value photo equipment recently and received good feedback for it, they're likely trustworthy.

 

The bigger problem with Ebay is not outright scam, but subtle defects, coating damages, etc. that have little impact on image quality but some impact on value.

[lct]

I would never buy to sellers who don't answer questions.

[Bill W]

I remember a year or so back, the same Noctilux kept appearing on ebay and it was a lens that a forum member had actually sold I believe. Others and I kept reporting to ebay that it was a scam. Finally it quit appearing. It pays to be safe and ask lots of questions.

[jaques]

for many years now scammers on ebay have focused (unsurprisingly) on high value items- and especially camera equipment. The photos and even descriptions are usually stolen from legitimate auctions. Be wary of items that are offered well below market value, sellers that require payment or contact outside of the ebay system, sellers that usually sell small value items who suddenly have thousands of dollars worth of top-end photo gear, etc. Once you know your way around ebay it is usually easy to spot a scam listing. I have purchased literally hundreds of cameras and lenses off ebay with very few problems at all- saving many thousands of dollars. Obviously with very high value items like a Noctilux you need to be doubly careful.

[LocalHero1953]

From experience, I can recommend buying from the Westlicht auction. Lots of interesting pieces. You have to get your head around the fee structure, VAT and shipping costs, but once you do that you can set a maximum bidding price with confidence. I got an excellent Hektor 7.3cm, and two Nikkor LTM lenses at good prices, but more modern stuff is available. If anything, the condition descriptions in the catalogues undersold them. Shipping wasn't quick because it had to wait for payment to clear, but packaging was first class.

[zeitz]

Peter Coeln Leica Shop / Westlicht Auction are not 100% clean either. Currently he has a Nikon Reflex Housing Type I with a 90 degree finder that goes with a Type II reflex housing. It is not a correct match but is being listed for nearly $16,000. What he has is a Type I that is missing a finder and a rare Type II finder, expensive but not $16,000 expensive. This pair was on e-bay in June 2013 by Noel MacDonald near Philadelphia, it sold but was never delivered. It then appeared in two Tamarkin Auctions. It did not sell in Nov of 2013 but did sell, apparently to Peter, in Spring of this year. As I recall it sold for about $4000.

 

I have written to Peter several times about errors in his descriptions. He writes back "thanks for the information" but he never changes his description.

 

That said I regularly buy from both Leica Shop and Westlicht Auction. But buyer beware.