What Drives Leica Crazy Prices?

[Fotoklaus]

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Luxury goods have to be expensive, as the buyers of them want to show their wealthiness. Perhaps prices go down for Leicas and for Rolexes, when every rich chinese guy has bought one ;-)

[ianman]

5 hours ago, ktmrider2 said:

So, shall we list things which have had prices go crazy like Leica cameras and Rolexes?  I would add Mont Blanc fountain pens to the list as well as other high end watches.  Leica is the only camera I can think of which would make the list.  

Vintage analogue synthesisers. I bought a Roland VP-330 for 150 euros, now they are selling at over 4k. I bought a Korg PS-3100 for 3000 euros and sold it a few years later for 8000. Modular Moogs and EMS Synthi have gone through the roof. In the early 2000s you couldn’t give away a Synthi… a few years ago they ere going easily north of 10k.

[Helge]

vor 4 Stunden schrieb Al Brown:

I totally see where you are coming from with your thorough explanation but what I wrote is unfortunatelly still a FACT. End of the day any back story does not matter, only prices matter for the guy who walks in the store with money. I do my VERY thorough research in this jungle you are referring to and can still get amazing prices for some items. So if someone is selling regularly 20-50% OVER the average (or, if you want, mean) market price there is no other way but calling that person a scalper, sorry. There is no better service, no guarantee that the item is flawless and no added value in customer service, just inflated prices and inflated postage. Let us not gaslight ourselves and others and just state it as it is - a fact. Exactly like the tourist trap restaurants worldwide  that do not post their prices next to food menus.
A bottle of small water costs 50 cents in the store, 2 euros in a restaurant and 4.5 euros at an airport. Opportunity creates the thief, said old and wise people.

You call people scalpers and prices inflated.

At the end it only matters, what people are paying, that creates a market price. If nobody is buying an item for the price, the „scalper“ is ascot, he won’t be able to sell it for that price, so no contribution to a change in market prices.

However prices are increasing, and that was never really related to any service or guarantee, this is absolutely only related to the ratio of supply vs demand.

[Helge]

You might need water (or beer) to survive, but not a Leica (at least most of us)and there is also no artificial shortage , so your comparison is really not to the point 
 

Edited February 2, 2024 by Helge

[willeica]

7 hours ago, Al Brown said:

I totally see where you are coming from with your thorough explanation but what I wrote is unfortunatelly still a FACT. End of the day any back story does not matter, only prices matter for the guy who walks in the store with money. I do my VERY thorough research in this jungle you are referring to and can still get amazing prices for some items. So if someone is selling regularly 20-50% OVER the average (or, if you want, mean) market price there is no other way but calling that person a scalper, sorry. There is no better service, no guarantee that the item is flawless and no added value in customer service, just inflated prices and inflated postage. Let us not gaslight ourselves and others and just state it as it is - a fact. Exactly like the tourist trap restaurants worldwide  that do not post their prices next to food menus.
A bottle of small water costs 50 cents in the store, 2 euros in a restaurant and 4.5 euros at an airport. Opportunity creates the thief, said old and wise people.

I wasn't disagreeing with your use of 'scalper', just saying that it does no good. We have a saying where I come from ' Don't get mad, get even'. That was what I was talking about. there is also a term 'let the buyer beware', often used in its Latin version 'caveat emptor'.  

I can follow this up with a little story which is true. These days most of us have smartphones and somebody once saw a Leica camera at auction (not a camera auction) in the US and went outside to check its value on his phone. He reckoned it might be worth $500 and went back in to the auction to bid on the camera. To his great surprise he got the camera for just $10. He then came on this forum and a number of people, including myself, identified it as a very early Leica IIId, which I thought (but did not say) might be worth about $25,000. He then got in touch with me by PM as, to him, I seemed to know what I was talking about and was a straight talker. By this stage I had determined that this was, in fact, the very first IIId ever made. I asked him if he wanted to sell it and he confirmed that he did. So, I put him in touch with auctioneer who sold it for €40,000. I got not a penny for doing this, just the satisfaction that a true value had been determined using market mechanisms. The real moral of this tale is, however, that a  person who had no idea of the value of a camera got its true value by doing a little spadework. As for the owner who sold it at auction in the US, I have no idea about who they were, but I think it might have been an estate sale. Some spade work on behalf of that estate would not have gone amiss.

William 

[jaapv]

Is the "scalper" the person driving the price? As far as I can see it is the buyer being prepared to pay.

As for the valuation allegedly given by forum members including yourself, that is -and always has been- against forum rules and if moderation had spotted it or would have been alerted by PM, it would have been dealt with, precisely for the reason you give. 

[jaapv]

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It is called capitalism. If somebody is prepared to pay the price, charge it...

[willeica]

56 minutes ago, Al Brown said:

Him not showing his gratitude for the selfless effort you provided tells volumes about him as a person. 
Not sure if you noticed - there was a story about a guy who was looking for a specific special edition M with a certain serial number here through the forum, and some member found it and let him know, only for the camera to be bought by a third member who was trying to scalp his way for twice the amount, knowing the camera had sentimental value to the OP.

 Fear of that sort of thing was why the guy came to me, although I have not seen much direct evidence of that here. I am quite used to people not saying thanks. It is something that you have to get used to early on in life. 

As for the 'scalper' topic, the only reason why people try these things out is because they feel they can get away with it. 

William