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I haven't read much on the "built in Portugal" lens series. My kit consists of the 24 Elmar, 35 Cron, 75 Cron..... i'm considering a 50 cron and interested in the Portugal version. Does anyone have a user experience / opinion?

Thanks

Rich

 

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The only reason for this is to get around USA tariffs on German products. Everything but the engraving is identical on both versions. It only indicates the place where the lens is boxed.

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Just out of curiosity, who here has purchased one of the Made in Portugal lenses?  

I'm sure we'll never know the sales numbers, but I wonder how many of these lenses have been sold.  Not exactly a scientific study, but if I look for customer reviews of the MIP lenses on the B&H web site, only one model has any (the black 50mm Summilux) and there are only two.  The rest of the Portugal lenses have zero user reviews.  Again, not necessarily a reliable metric, but I haven't seen any mention of these lenses on this or other forums, other than threads like this one discussing the tariff issue.

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1 minute ago, Jeff S said:

If you’ve read the reviews on these lenses before the announcement, the assessment will be the same afterwards.

Jeff

Right, I wasn't looking for reviews of the lenses.  Just using the number of reviews as a (admittedly weak) metric of the number of lenses purchased.  I'm really just curious if anyone is buying them over the Made in Germany lenses.

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2 hours ago, logan2z said:

Right, I wasn't looking for reviews of the lenses.  Just using the number of reviews as a (admittedly weak) metric of the number of lenses purchased.  I'm really just curious if anyone is buying them over the Made in Germany lenses.

Exactly! To understand what the ‘‘in the field’ experience is, meaning is it truly identical except for the engraving 
 

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I was hoping the price differential would be larger. From B&H it's only a couple of hundred dollars (which is nothing to sneeze at I suppose). I would not hesitate to buy one of the Portugal lenses.

 

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On 1/1/2021 at 11:32 PM, rsolomon said:

Exactly! To understand what the ‘‘in the field’ experience is, meaning is it truly identical except for the engraving 
 

But they weren’t fondled by German elves.

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In the past the challenge was to retain the "Made in Germany". Manufacturers play with internal transfer prices and with internal allocation of overhead cost, but thenceforth cannot change the applied accounting policy at will. Likely Leica temporarily and only for the batches assigned to USA relocated just enough works from Germany to Portugal to achieve just above 50% value-added in Portugal rather than just above 50% value-added in Germany.

The 25% (punitive) tariff applies to invoiced transfer prices at the border, eventually including invoiced transport cost, but not to the retail prices. This affects the distributer's and the dealers' liquidity, but not necessarily distributer and dealers need to increase their mark-up and retail prices by 25%. 

Some say the foreign companies pay the (punitive) tariff. Some say the domestic consumers and businesses pay the (punitive) tariff. Neither claim is correct. There is complex economic theory about tax shift (applicable to import tariffs and duties). The nominal tariff payer in full or partially shifts the financial tariff burden among his customers, business partners, shareholders, employers etc.. Leica's response to the (punitive) tariff has all of it, including price increases for US customers and for Leica products that are not directly affected by the (punitive) tariff, including total avoidance by changing the country of origin. 

 

 

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16 minutes ago, Peter Zapp said:

 Likely Leica temporarily and only for the batches assigned to USA relocated just enough works from Germany to Portugal to achieve just above 50% value-added in Portugal rather than just above 50% value-added in Germany.

 

The lenses are made in Portugal anyway, only finishing and packaging takes place in Germany.

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  • 3 months later...

Resurrecting this thread about the ‘Portugal’ lenses, are they marked/engraved ‘Made in Portugal’ (as mentioned above) on the lens body?  I ask just for knowledge sake as I’ve never seen that. If anyone has one of the recent Portugal lenses, can you shoot a pic of the engraving that would be great.  Thanks.

 

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13 hours ago, RMF said:

Resurrecting this thread about the ‘Portugal’ lenses, are they marked/engraved ‘Made in Portugal’ (as mentioned above) on the lens body?  I ask just for knowledge sake as I’ve never seen that. If anyone has one of the recent Portugal lenses, can you shoot a pic of the engraving that would be great.  Thanks.

 

This is a pic of a lens sold as and marketed as made in Portugal.

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