do M lenses remain a good long term investment?

[pippy]

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2 hours ago, Fedro said:

You are lucky. I have two small children and given the economic situation  I need to worry about stuff like this

I, too, have a young(-ish) child, am a self-employed, and we are all going through the same economic times but worrying about stuff never changed anything. My rule about buying 'kit' is that if the cost of something might be an issue then I simply don't buy it in the first place. Spending money I can't afford to 'lose' on equipment would be wholly irresponsible.

Philip.

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[Gobert]

If I want to invest I’d better buy real estate or classic cars.

I bought, and will buy, my camera gear just for hobby and I am not interested at all if the value increases or not.

[Gobert]

4 hours ago, spydrxx said:

Not to crash the party, but I wouldn't think of the lenses as an investment, but rather as a means of achieving a photographic goal. Yes, many people have been lucky that the value of their lenses has appreciated since their original acquisition, for others the opposite has been true. But to determine if a lens purchase represented a good investment, it must be compared to other potential investments over similar time periods, a home, a common stock, gold bullion, cryptocurrency,  etc. I suspect that when one does so, depending on the timing of when they bought a particular lens, it may have been an average investment, especially for long term holders when inflation is factored in. And unlike many true investments, lenses pay no interest or dividends to compound the financial return.

Cryptos are no investment, it is speculating.
Nevertheless, I wish I would have bought as much cryptos as possible a year of five ago.

 

[sincurves]

I think there is handful of parameters that drive desirability of lenses and may work as longterm investments:

- Rarity: Is this a limited edition or an out of production lens.

- 35mm & 50mm: Only these two classics will have lasting desirability.

- Is it a Leica: Nothing else matters, really. That's not to say there isn't great non-Leica glass, but they will not hold value.

- Material: This appears to change with time. But black paint, chromed brass and hammertone (!) are always up there.

- Fashion: Hard to admit but we are certainly talking about trend and what's in fashion as well. Just look at the number of posts on social media with great looking kit that is style-matched, not to mention straps, softreleases and watches. I think it's awesome. It's has little, if anything, to do with photography as an artform, it's an appreciation of craftmanship, quality and the sheer joy of owning these gems of glass. And that's just fine.

I have been using M lenses for quite a while now, and the lenses that kept their value always fall into one or more of the above categories. Some of them surprised me, like the red 50 APO which just took off even thought it's just a normal APO with a red housing. Others took a while, like the 35/2 Black Chrome Limited Edition - now it's quite a desirable lens.

 

[pippy]

3 hours ago, Fedro said:

...when I look at the value of my lenses, and what I spent on them over the years, it is a considerable amount of my belongings...

Can I ask you - and have you, yourself, considered - what criteria you use to assess whether you should buy a lens beforehand?

Like many folks here I've spent a fair bit on lenses over the years but only 4 of my M-mount lenses were bought new and none of those is a high-value item. My approach is, first-off, to ask "Do I need it or do I just want it?". How many of your own lenses do you really need? And I do mean really need. Did you really need the extra 1/2-stop speed of the 75mm APO over the 75 Summarit which, because it is unfashionable, can be picked up used for 1/4 the price of the APO?

Just curious.

Philip.

[willeica]

12 hours ago, pippy said:

No interest whatsoever and couldn't possibly care less.

Philip.

Agree and, in my case, I don't even know how many I have.

William

[didier]

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Photography is a Hobby for me. I am a pure amateur. I buy Leica Lenses to use them, because I think my photos are better since I enjoy using them. But they are also much more expensive than other brands. And, as Fedro and lct point out, they lose less value comparatively to other photographic tools.

So, if not an investment, it can be interesting to try not to lose too much  . I’ve been using Leicas for 15 years now. Some stuff lost value (digital bodies), some Lenses as well, some others value sky-rocketed. The 2 latest Lenses I bought were limited Editions : they were a little bit more expansive than the standard Lens, but I hope they will retain their value better.

[Herr Barnack]

3 hours ago, willeica said:

Agree and, in my case, I don't even know how many I have.

William

Would that we all had that "problem!"  😄

[Herr Barnack]

7 hours ago, Fedro said:

so did I, but when I look at the value of my lenses, and what I spent on them over the years, it is a considerable amount of my belongings

It's what I call the Leica Life Insurance policy.  When I finally go to the big chicken coop in the sky, my wife will  be able to sell off my Leica kit and cash in quite nicely. 

That preparation for the inevitable is one of the seldom recognized spousal benefits of being married to a Leica connoisseur. 😎

Edited March 21, 2021 by Herr Barnack

[Fedro]

8 hours ago, pippy said:

I, too, have a young(-ish) child, am a self-employed, and we are all going through the same economic times but worrying about stuff never changed anything. My rule about buying 'kit' is that if the cost of something might be an issue then I simply don't buy it in the first place. Spending money I can't afford to 'lose' on equipment would be wholly irresponsible.

Philip.

HI Philip

I am not particularly concerned, but I have accumulated a few things, so I am wondering whether to keep or sell the ones that I don't use regularly

Fedro

[Fedro]

7 hours ago, pippy said:

Can I ask you - and have you, yourself, considered - what criteria you use to assess whether you should buy a lens beforehand?

Like many folks here I've spent a fair bit on lenses over the years but only 4 of my M-mount lenses were bought new and none of those is a high-value item. My approach is, first-off, to ask "Do I need it or do I just want it?". How many of your own lenses do you really need? And I do mean really need. Did you really need the extra 1/2-stop speed of the 75mm APO over the 75 Summarit which, because it is unfashionable, can be picked up used for 1/4 the price of the APO?

Just curious.

Philip.

Frankly this sounds a little OTT - why do you assume that I picked up the 75 APO  over the Summarit  because the latter is unfashionable?

I simply asked if people thought that M lenses are a good investment - aside from being excellent optics, why would we buy them in the first place otherwise. I have not asked for an analysis of my camera spending habits - I already have my wife for that

Edited March 21, 2021 by Fedro

[Fedro]

3 hours ago, Herr Barnack said:

It's what I call the Leica Life Insurance policy.  When I finally go to the big chicken coop in the sky, my wife will  be able to sell off my Leica kit and cash in quite nicely. 

That preparation for the inevitable is one of the seldom recognized spousal benefits of being married to a Leica connoisseur. 😎

this is funny - I thought the same a few times, I have to admit

[pippy]

14 minutes ago, Fedro said:

Frankly this sounds a little OTT - why do you assume that I picked up the 75 APO  over the Summarit  because the latter is unfashionable?

I simply asked if people thought that M lenses are a good investment - aside from being excellent optics, why would we buy them in the first place otherwise. I have not asked for an analysis of my camera spending habits - I already have my wife for that

Ha! Yes; a wife can often be very pragmatic. Mine is an excellent example!

As far as the case of the two 75mm lenses is concerned the way I phrased the wording clearly led you to completely misunderstanding my post so please accept my apologies for that.

The reason I mentioned the 75 choice was because I went through exactly that situation a couple of years ago when I was after a 75 for myself. Weighing things up I decided that for MY needs the APO would be unneccessary - f2.5 is plenty fast enough and a 0.9m min-focus is perfectly fine for me - and so I took the option of buying a used, mint-in-box Summarit instead - saving myself some £2,600 / 3,000 Euros in the process.

Apologies again for the confusion!

Philip.

[pgk]

To be a 'good' investment, Leica lenses need to be bought used, cheap and immaculate and kept in that condition. That way they have had any 'depreciation' and as new prices increase their value too will do so. I tend to buy obviously used lenses and then continue to use them with the inevitable wear this includes. Despite this they have always seemed to at least hold, or even increase in, their value. Good investment, well probably not all that good, but certainly not a bad one either.

But that's not why I buy them.

Edited March 21, 2021 by pgk
typos

[Fedro]

58 minutes ago, pippy said:

Ha! Yes; a wife can often be very pragmatic. Mine is an excellent example!

As far as the case of the two 75mm lenses is concerned the way I phrased the wording clearly led you to completely misunderstanding my post so please accept my apologies for that.

The reason I mentioned the 75 choice was because I went through exactly that situation a couple of years ago when I was after a 75 for myself. Weighing things up I decided that for MY needs the APO would be unneccessary - f2.5 is plenty fast enough and a 0.9m min-focus is perfectly fine for me - and so I took the option of buying a used, mint-in-box Summarit instead - saving myself some £2,600 / 3,000 Euros in the process.

Apologies again for the confusion!

Philip.

No worries Philip, it is all in good spirit. 

This forum is a healthy mix of a bit of everything, from collectors to amateurs and pros, some who buy only special editions and others who cannot afford it, so I knew that this topic would be a little controversial 

I am not a collector,  and I am not a millionaire; I have had a good career and I have been able to support my hobby, I have made my mistakes and learned from them (I very very rarely buy new M lenses these days). But I cannot pretend not to care about the amount of funds that have gone into it and regularly wonder if I should keep everything or sell some ..

[Fedro]

36 minutes ago, pgk said:

To be a 'good' investment, Leica lenses need to be bought used, cheap and immaculate and kept in that condition. That way they have had any 'depreciation' and as new prices increase their value too will do so. I tend to buy obviously used lenses and then continue to use them with the inevitable wear this includes. Despite this they have always seemed to at lease hold or even increase in their value. Good investment, well probably not all that good, but certainly not a bad one either.

But that's not why I buy them.

agree, I do the same and buy mostly second hand.

Also in order to see them as a pure investment, you have to lock them into a cabinet the moment you buy them, which is something that I don't do. 

But as you say even those that have obvious wear have kept or increased value over the years

I don't buy them as an investment, but I have stuff that I don't use that regularly and I could keep or sell, so I was wondering what others thought about the future in terms of marketability of M lenses

Edited March 21, 2021 by Fedro

[pgk]

1 minute ago, Fedro said:

I don't buy them as an investment, but I have stuff that I don't use that regularly and I could keep or sell, so I was wondering what others thought about the future in terms of marketability of M lenses

Unless there is a seisic shift in values of photographic gear, history would suggest that Leica lenses retain much of their value or even enhance in value. My suggestion is to sell unused lenses if you need the money or want another lens which you will use more.

[Fedro]

Thanks Paul

yes, that is good wisdom

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[Stephen.s1]

No one has mentioned that once you buy a new lens It's lost roughly 20% (if you're lucky) of it's retail price.  See what a dealer will offer you for your "investment".

[Dennis]

I made a few months ago the decision not to sell any M-camera or M-lenses (any  brand) I/will own. They are for me to use first, and when I will not be able to use them anymore, we'll see. Maybe I'll exchange it all in 57 years for a brand New VR system, such as Leica VR-SL33-REAL-APO v4.3.212 🤣 

I already started the deep customization of my M10, because I'll not sell it. Once I get the proper alcohol, I'll start to take the paint off some ISO and SS numbers, oh yeah! I can't wait.