I Loved my Leica

[madNbad]

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I loved both but were sold to fund a home improvement project. The M2 had just returned from DAG, someone got a deal on both.

 

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[hepcat]

9 hours ago, kivis said:

Aren't R bodies manual focus?

Yes, but there are various focusing aids on the focusing screen.  And the effective distance to the focusing aids on the focusing screen is longer than the distance to the focusing patch in a rangefinder viewfinder, so I can focus them quite nicely.

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[Overgaard]

15 hours ago, kivis said:

What is an M2/3/4?

A $50,000 Leica M2 black paint ... 

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[Al Brown]

Selling a Leica body or lens and then regretting it is the quintessential part of a Leica user life and an important part of the higher learning.
My one and only dumb mistake was selling my dad's IIIc Barnack I learned photography on to fund my first SLR camera. Back then I was thrilled, but now nostalgia kicked in. Would buy it back in a heartbeat. It had "Kraigher" engraving on the bottom plate (not our family name).

[cesc]

Sold my first M , an M6 for 900 eur. Before prices went crazy

Also I sold my summicron35mm v4 for 1000 eur...

1 year ago, I thought I learnt the lesson... But no I thought buying an MP was the best decision, so I sold my M3 and M2 to get the MP instead.

 

Now I have an MP... And I miss my M2 

 

I am official an impulsive stupid 

 

 

 

 

[apatel]

On 8/19/2022 at 1:58 PM, Huss said:

Sold my M3 DS in green.  Don't regret it one bit as I really did not like the DS action, and didn't want to convert it as I already had a better condition M3 SS with blue leather.

Also sold 2 Leica R-Es - excellent cameras (bought two as I had one, found a crazy deal on the other and knew I could eventually flip it).  Don't regret it as I have an R7 and an R9.

Need to sell one of those - most prob the R7 - as I hardly use SLRs anyway.

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Glad you sold this one  I’m enjoying it !

[AZD]

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Here’s a fun one. While I wasn’t the seller I am, in a way, connected to the end of the story.  

Family legend has it that one day in the 1980’s my father-in-law traded, straight across, a Leica with three lenses for… wait for it… a new Nikon FG and 36-72mm zoom. I don’t know which Leica and lenses, but it’s safe to say knowing wouldn’t make me feel any better. The kit had come from Germany with my wife’s grandfather in the mid 50s. Best guess is it was a screw mount model. The camera store employee has been described as more than happy to cut a deal. 

The FG with its Program mode and exciting zoomy-zoom was, practically speaking, the better tool for making 4×6’s of kids and dogs from Kodak Gold, especially for someone who doesn’t enjoy mechanical complexity.

Years later, as the recipient of the (now defunct) FG and 36-72mm, do I feel the same? Absolutely not. And apparently neither does my mother-in-law. It’s a sore subject to this day.

[Huss]

17 hours ago, apatel said:

Glad you sold this one  I’m enjoying it !

Glad you like it!  It is a beautiful looking camera.  Just prefer SS than DS..

[Huss]

2 hours ago, AZD said:

Here’s a fun one. While I wasn’t the seller I am, in a way, connected to the end of the story.  

Family legend has it that one day in the 1980’s my father-in-law traded, straight across, a Leica with three lenses for… wait for it… a new Nikon FG and 36-72mm zoom. I don’t know which Leica and lenses, but it’s safe to say knowing wouldn’t make me feel any better. The kit had come from Germany with my wife’s grandfather in the mid 50s. Best guess is it was a screw mount model. The camera store employee has been described as more than happy to cut a deal. 

The FG with its Program mode and exciting zoomy-zoom was, practically speaking, the better tool for making 4×6’s of kids and dogs from Kodak Gold, especially for someone who doesn’t enjoy mechanical complexity.

Years later, as the recipient of the (now defunct) FG and 36-72mm, do I feel the same? Absolutely not. And apparently neither does my mother-in-law. It’s a sore subject to this day.

Kinda on topic with a similar experience.  Back in the day I had a beautiful, perfect Olympus OM4.  I traded it for a Minolta 7000i plastic AF slr.  I regretted that back then about a week in, and regret it now..  I believed the magazine tests that said how incredible it was, with killer focus tracking etc.  Then found out it would only track focus if the subject was moving towards you, not away from you!

[Al Brown]

As opposed to my dumb mistake (post #24), I also have one thing with 0.0% selling regret: the Leica CL (working meter) and Elmar-C 90mm lens.

[Camaro5]

I've had lenses I regret selling and with cameras I kind of wish I'd kept the MP 240 I had.  I traded it for an M10, which was fine, but I wish I'd just kept the MP 240 and bought the M10 outright.  The M10 eventually got upgraded to an M10-R and I don't regret doing that.  

As for non-Leica gear, I had a Nikon D850 that I loved and never should've sold it.  Dumb move.  

[Huss]

12 hours ago, Camaro5 said:

  

As for non-Leica gear, I had a Nikon D850 that I loved and never should've sold it.  Dumb move.  

I traded my D850 for a Z7.  Wish I never did that.

[Topsy]

I've only ever sold 1 Leica an M6 and I don't regret it, it helped fund my MP. I do however very much

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regret selling the only new vehicle I ever owned.

[Huss]

10 hours ago, Topsy said:

I've only ever sold 1 Leica an M6 and I don't regret it, it helped fund my MP. I do however very much

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regret selling the only new vehicle I ever owned.

I sold my Moto Guzzi Griso SE.  It was the version with the 8v engine and the Tenni paint job.  I should have kept it…

[madNbad]

I really don’t regret selling the Leica gear. There was a local KEH buying event, they wrote a substantial check and Mr Home Improvements deck that was falling apart was replaced by a professionally built one using material that is resistant to rot. In the end, I got the M4 I always wanted and Voigtlander introduced the 35 Ultron ASPH, making selling the 35 Summicron less painful. I have owned dozens of cameras and learned something from all of them. 
As an aside, a friend had a 125 Kawasaki he bought new. We spent many hours riding it around the fields behind his house. The best was when they started prepping the area for a new housing development.

[John Robinson]

On 8/23/2022 at 8:25 AM, Al Brown said:

Selling a Leica body or lens and then regretting it is the quintessential part of a Leica user life

My lesson was mainly "never sell Leica lenses" as I regret every one I sold, now that the cost of buying them back has doubled or tripled (or more) and they can produce excellent results on Leica digital cameras.  

My first Leica M was an M2 (I still have it, still in superb condition at 64 years' old).  Later I wanted an M with a light meter and found an M6 in need of attention.  Sent to Solms for an overhaul, came back in superb condition, matched to a Summicron type III.

Then along came Leica digital.  An M9 with Summilux-M 50 ASPH meant that the M2 and M6 sat in the cupboard for five years without seeing an inch of film.  I kept the M2 but sold the M6 with its Summicron.  (Someone got a bargain at GBP1,500.)

Scroll forward a decade and there is a resurgence of interest in shooting film, at which point I thought, "damn! The 0.85M6TTL would have been very useful."  Turns out prices of M6 bodies have tripled (or more) alongside the lenses.  Finding an almost-mint condition, 62-year old M3 for about the same price as the M6 I sold has (almost) compensated for the earlier error.  Matched with the Summilux, it is capable of superb results.

Some say the M3 is less likely to fail than the electronic-dependent M6.  Maybe so.  But still, my lesson is that, if you have a Leica camera that you have had serviced by Leica and it is working well, hold on to it because you never know when you will find yourself turning back to it as a superb image-making tool.

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[jackbaty]

I am in the process of making one of these very mistakes. My MP is currently for sale to fund an M10-R, one of which I recently sold and regretted.

 

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[cesc]

10 minutes ago, jackbaty said:

I am in the process of making one of these very mistakes. My MP is currently for sale to fund an M10-R, one of which I recently sold and regretted.

 

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I bought an M10 two days ago and I am selling my MP black paint like yours... Still hesitating.

[logan2z]

1 hour ago, jackbaty said:

I am in the process of making one of these very mistakes. My MP is currently for sale to fund an M10-R, one of which I recently sold and regretted.

 

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Beautiful camera, not easy to come by.  I'd keep it if you can, at least until you know for sure that you won't miss it after the M10-R arrives.   

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[jackbaty]

3 hours ago, cesc said:

I bought an M10 two days ago and I am selling my MP black paint like yours... Still hesitating.

It's a difficult decision, for sure!