Leica historical list prices ? 2000? 2010? 2015?

[dpitt]

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6 hours ago, willeica said:

The M6 has tripled in price since I bought one about 13 years ago. M3s have maybe gone up by a factor of 1.5 or 2 in that time. I could go on model by model, but the situation varies from one model to another and it is difficult to draw conclusions. If you want to look at a longer time period, LTM chrome models were sold new at a premium over the black lacquer models in the 1930s. Now the opposite is the case in the second hand market.

Collectability is a factor which affects some models (say M3s) more than others, but it is not the only factor. Another issue is that with rangefinders you are getting something where Leica was and still is the top of the heap, but the R is just another SLR with many great competitors from Nikon, Canon, Olympus, Pentax etc. I always shudder when I see long term affordability tables, say with houses or cars, as there many factors other than wages v prices which need to be considered and these include changing patterns of consumer expenditure and the availability of substitutes etc, etc. It is up to yourself, but my advice would be to narrow down what you want to measure and then to reach conclusions with built-in caveats about how the figures should be read. Otherwise you will end up with just a series of anecdotes about different camera models. 

I'm just giving general advice as I am still not clear what you are trying to achieve. Using information that is historical needs to be approached with caution. You are looking at price information that was published in a world which was quite different to the one in which we live today.

William 

Don't worry. I am not sure what I want to achieve either 🙂
If anything, i am just curious about how the relative value of all these excellent items evolved over time. 
Maybe I am an a-typical collector, in the sense that cosmetic state is of not much concern for me. I am just curious about how it works. But I try to make sure that I do not overpay for an item, so that I can resell it for about the same when I would want to.

So most of the time, I am not on the lookout for the perfect mint sample of anything. On the contrary, I can be very happy with a beaten up user item if it is performing perfectly. I can appreciate the other kind of collecting too, but it is not my cup of tea.
I do understand that condition is everything and that makes it hard to compare any used item price. That is why I intended to just look at the original (new) list price and compare that with the average used price today.

In most cases I like to admire that craftsmanship and care that was involved in designing and producing these products, and I feel a little sad when that very expensive and hard to make lens or camera has depreciated much more than their equal fellow did. And I try to understand the rational and irrational reasons behind that...

5 hours ago, Anbaric said:

I find trends in collectability hard to fathom. Even quite recently a common black II or III had no particular premium, but they are now desirable and the prices for rare black cameras have gone through the roof. But the collector market only partially overlaps with the user market. The dealer price of a fully working chrome II, III, IIIa, IIIc or IIIf, somewhere in the £200-£400 range depending on model and condition, has been pretty static for decades, though cameras that don't need servicing are becoming harder to find. I suppose they don't have the rarity value to make them expensive to collectors, and uninitiated users find them fiddly and would rather have an M. Or maybe it's just that they haven't been pounced on by an Instagram influencer yet. Ominously, someone mentioned on one of the forums that III-series Leicas are being called 'Ripley cameras' after one was used used in the Netflix series, which might create some price hiking interest.

Indeed. That is where the irrationality and unpredictability comes in. A new generation is now picking up film photography and it is an interesting exercise to understand how they look at it in a totally different way compared to older people who grew up with film because there was nothing else. Social media accelerates and exaggerates the hype effects IMO

3 hours ago, willeica said:

You are trying to rationalise something that has a lot of irrational elements in it. You use the term 'dealer price' but at the level of auctions there is no set price and the value lands when and where the bidding ends. last year in Wetzlar I saw somebody buy a Terry O'Neill Special Edition Leica MP camera with an Audrey Hepburn print for €200,000 at auction when the 'normal' price is about €25,000. I spoke to the guy at dinner afterwards, but I did not ask him about that purchase as, in my opinion, it was entirely his own business.  As for so-called 'dealer prices' there is also a price at which one person will sell and another one will buy. Influencers don't exist in my world, but when I occasionally stumble across them they are usually engaging in some kind of puff about the latest digital camera model. I don't see influencers having an effect on the auction market. I occasionally write about auctions, but I generally write about the historical items and only quote prices as a matter of fact https://www.macfilos.com/2024/05/15/leitz-photographica-auction-my-top-ten-favourites/ . I am approaching 75 and I am way too old to be considered an influencer 😇.

William 

Yes, influencers do not influence collectible items that much. But they influence user items much more IMO. Part of the M6 hype can probably be attributed to them . And much of the cine hype for some R lenses was driven by Youtubers, both as users and as influencers. I found they had great influence on the price of used R lenses, even if they were not exactly rare or mint condition e.g. Summicron 50 R was dirt cheap 10 years ago and now it is back at a reasonable level.
And what happened with the price for the Elmarit 19 R over the last 10 years is amazing.

3 hours ago, Anbaric said:

That's really what I meant about there only being partial overlap between collectors and users. These are somewhat different worlds (though obviously there are some user-collectors - even I have a couple more LTM cameras than I really need). Users tend to buy from dealers or ebay etc. and, for better or worse, influencers can shift demand and therefore prices substantially (even for new cameras that are in short supply, like the Fuji X100V was). I wouldn't attempt to rationalise the passions of serious collectors! But it's interesting how something that used to be seen as a minor variant with no particular added value can become a much sought after and expensive item.

Indeed fascinating and hard to understand or predict, but fun to observe.

Edited May 25, 2024 by dpitt

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[beoon]

On 5/24/2024 at 2:56 PM, dpitt said:

Does anyone have Leica price lists to share?
In particular price lists later than 1995 would interest me.

I have been collecting Leica Literature (including price lists) for over 40 years and would be able to supply the following price lists (mainly M series) as detailed below.

April 89 (German DM)

Feb 90 (£)

April 91 (£)

Oct 92 (£)

May 93 (£)

May 95 (£)

July 97 (£)

July / Nov 98 (£)

Sep / Oct 99 (£)

Feb / Dec 2000 (£)

Nov 2001 (£)

May / Oct  2002 (£)

Mar 2003 (£)

June / Dec 2004 (£)

May / Oct 2005 (£)

May / Oct 2006 (£)

Feb 2012 (£)

Jan 2014 (£)

The earliest original price list I have is from May 1926  (£) through till the above dates.

If you would to see some of the above send me a PM and I could send them via WeTransfer

Regards

Alan Stokes

 

[beoon]

21 hours ago, Anbaric said:

Ominously, someone mentioned on one of the forums that III-series Leicas are being called 'Ripley cameras' after one was used in the Netflix series, which might create some price hiking interest.

This way of "nicknaming" products (typically luxury products) is typical of many products now, the funny thing is that Leica collectors started with this very many years ago when Leica produced a Silver Chrome M6 with Black top plate hardware. Apparently they did not have stock at the time of the correct silver chrome hardware and put Black hardware on the top plate.

The camera then became known as a "Panda" M6 and the rest is history.

The world of Swiss watches from a specific brand has numerous "nicknames" which I find laughable, but it sent prices through the roof for a while as the dealers (specifically in the pre-owned market) cashed in on the hype for a "Batman" or a "Hulk".

 

[Al Brown]

The most expensive sellers for buying Leica used goods, collector stuff included with super inflated prices are at the moment Goerlitz, Schouten and Leica itself with the Leicashop webpage connecting all Leica stores that participate. But I guess if the market will bare this kudos and cheers to them.

[willeica]

On 5/25/2024 at 4:22 PM, dpitt said:

Don't worry. I am not sure what I want to achieve either 🙂

In most cases I like to admire that craftsmanship and care that was involved in designing and producing these products, and I feel a little sad when that very expensive and hard to make lens or camera has depreciated much more than their equal fellow did. And I try to understand the rational and irrational reasons behind that...

That makes 2 of us 😀. I would be interested in any findings that you make, but what you are studying is a mixture of the rational and the irrational. Decoupling those could be interesting. 

On 5/25/2024 at 4:22 PM, dpitt said:

Yes, influencers do not influence collectible items that much. But they influence user items much more IMO. Part of the M6 hype can probably be attributed to them . And much of the cine hype for some R lenses was driven by Youtubers, both as users and as influencers. I found they had great influence on the price of used R lenses, even if they were not exactly rare or mint condition e.g. Summicron 50 R was dirt cheap 10 years ago and now it is back at a reasonable level.
And what happened with the price for the Elmarit 19 R over the last 10 years is amazing.

On 5/25/2024 at 1:53 PM, Anbaric said:

I'm still trying to work out what an 'influencer' actually is. I don't see much influence on second hand camera prices by 'naughty young people*' who are called 'influencers'. What I see is a complex market with a whole series of influences, including the classic economic theories of supply and demand etc. 

* Some of them could even be 'naughty old people' 

William 

[Al Brown]

1 minute ago, willeica said:

I'm still trying to work out what an 'influencer' actually is.

The definition is quite simple.
"An influencer is a person that makes more money than you do by endorsing products they do not believe in and using their instagram followers as capital to set the fees."

(Trademarked by me).

[dpitt]

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45 minutes ago, willeica said:

I'm still trying to work out what an 'influencer' actually is. I don't see much influence on second hand camera prices by 'naughty young people*' who are called 'influencers'. What I see is a complex market with a whole series of influences, including the classic economic theories of supply and demand etc. 

Of course, it all comes down to the good old supply and demand principle. But what if some individuals could make the demand for certain things go up? It just takes a few video's on Youtube to go viral for some relatively scarce items like Leica R lenses to make prices go up.

I tried to look up the most influential video's on Youtube about Leica R lenses outside the usual Leica circles, and came up with this in a few minutes, posted 9 years ago, and 209K views. If 1% of the viewers decided to buy a Leica R lens after viewing this that results in 2000 lenses sold!

I am sure there are many more out there like this and even better.

or this

63K views 3 years ago

And in particular with the cine application for R lenses, the buyer changes from a poor man's M lens replacement to a pro or semi pro that is used to spending 20K+ on a set of primes (cine or cine mod lenses)

Edited May 26, 2024 by dpitt

[Anbaric]

1 hour ago, willeica said:

I'm still trying to work out what an 'influencer' actually is. I don't see much influence on second hand camera prices by 'naughty young people*' who are called 'influencers'. What I see is a complex market with a whole series of influences, including the classic economic theories of supply and demand etc.

'Influencing' is big business. Some photography channels on platforms like YouTube or Instagram have hundreds of thousands or even millions of subscribers. When you get to be this big, you're probably getting most or all of your income from social media advertising and promotion, and may have employees of your own to keep the show on the road. When one of these operations takes an interest in a camera like the M6, which was made in relatively small numbers before the reissue, the demand for a very limited supply can be supercharged. And then, as you say, classic economics kicks in and an £800 camera becomes a £2400 camera.

This video has been viewed more than 400,000 times. At one point the presenter, who has nearly a quarter of a million subscribers, muses about the irony of making another high profile video about the popularity of an already hyped camera, which will probably raise its market price still further.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1nbyWepk38k

[beoon]

Here are some sample price lists from Leica UK RRP February 1990, February 2000 & May 2006.

Enjoy

Alan

 

1990 02.pdf 2000 02.pdf 2006 05.pdf

[luigi bertolotti]

12 hours ago, Anbaric said:

'Influencing' is big business. Some photography channels on platforms like YouTube or Instagram have hundreds of thousands or even millions of subscribers. When you get to be this big, you're probably getting most or all of your income from social media advertising and promotion, and may have employees of your own to keep the show on the road. When one of these operations takes an interest in a camera like the M6, which was made in relatively small numbers before the reissue, the demand for a very limited supply can be supercharged. And then, as you say, classic economics kicks in and an £800 camera becomes a £2400 camera.

This video has been viewed more than 400,000 times. At one point the presenter, who has nearly a quarter of a million subscribers, muses about the irony of making another high profile video about the popularity of an already hyped camera, which will probably raise its market price still further.

I stay away from social channels... and feel the advent of influencers as an idiotic fashion which hopefully  will have its end some day

BUT

Must admit that if is through influencers that our Leica passion can survive also in new generations, so good 😄

[Anbaric]

1 hour ago, luigi bertolotti said:

I stay away from social channels... and feel the advent of influencers as an idiotic fashion which hopefully  will have its end some day

BUT

Must admit that if is through influencers that our Leica passion can survive also in new generations, so good 😄

I fear that influencers are here to stay - if there's money in it...

I rather wish they'd latched on to something like the Canon AE-1 (Wikipedia says they made >5 million of those) instead of the M6 (l-camera wiki says there are only 100-150k M6 Classics). But I suppose we have them to thank for the M6 reissue and, to be fair, some produce genuinely useful content. As you say, they also help maintain interest. I went to the Photographica camera fair in London recently, formerly the preserve of Old White Men. This time, there was a much younger and more diverse crowd than it would have attracted 5 years ago, and some of them had Leicas or were checking them out.

[beoon]

4 minutes ago, Anbaric said:

I fear that influencers are here to stay - if there's money in it...

I went to the Photographica camera fair in London recently, formerly the preserve of Old White Men. This time, there was a much younger and more diverse crowd than it would have attracted 5 years ago, and some of them had Leicas or were checking them out.

It was the very same at the LSI 3 day meeting in Porto recently, both William (Willeica) and myself were there, but lots of enthusiastic younger members and all using Leica cameras both film and digital.

 

[willeica]

26 minutes ago, beoon said:

It was the very same at the LSI 3 day meeting in Porto recently, both William (Willeica) and myself were there, but lots of enthusiastic younger members and all using Leica cameras both film and digital.

 

Thanks, Alan. I was one of the film users there. There was a great vibe there, some of which came from a much younger group of Leica users than usual from a diverse group of nations. Not an 'influencer' in sight I'm happy to report. The highlight was the visit to the Leica factory which showed many different products being handmade in 2024. I also presented Dr Kaufmann with a plaque giving him life membership of LSI. Our good friend Augusto Liger (tranquilo67 on this forum) gave a talk about collections and specifically the Mur Collection in Madrid, which includes 0 Series No 104.

One thing which a lot of attendees missed was the wonderful Portuguese Centre of Photography which has a wonderful online database (Portuguese only for the time being) of the large number of cameras which they have. It would be nice if they could do something like this in Wetzlar.

The main database

https://digicam.cpf.dglab.gov.pt/catalogo/

The Leicas

https://digicam.cpf.dglab.gov.pt/pesquisa/?p=Leica

 

35 minutes ago, Anbaric said:

I rather wish they'd latched on to something like the Canon AE-1 (Wikipedia says they made >5 million of those) instead of the M6 (l-camera wiki says there are only 100-150k M6 Classics). But I suppose we have them to thank for the M6 reissue and, to be fair, some produce genuinely useful content. As you say, they also help maintain interest. I went to the Photographica camera fair in London recently, formerly the preserve of Old White Men. This time, there was a much younger and more diverse crowd than it would have attracted 5 years ago, and some of them had Leicas or were checking them out.

I would have been at the Photographica Fair in London on 19th May if I were not in Porto. I was on a research zoom yesterday with Tim Goldsmith, the President of the Photographic Collectors Club of Great Britain who run the fair. He said that they were staggered by the number of people attending, particularly those that were in younger age cohorts. They ran out of wristbands for entrants and had to use raffle tickets as substitutes. Normally in the old location the fair died down at lunchtime, but people were still queuing to get in at 4pm. Something is happening and we cannot put it all down to 'influencers'. 

2 hours ago, luigi bertolotti said:

stay away from social channels... and feel the advent of influencers as an idiotic fashion which hopefully  will have its end some day

Luigi, I occasionally view them, but only because they might contain some information I don't have already. I rarely find any and I often hear wrong information being given out. Blaming higher prices on influencers is anything but the whole story. The advent of the online world has caused a whole series of paradigm changes as more information about a lot of things is available more widely and quickly. In this regard I would also mention online stores and online auctions which facilitate trade in second hand items. That alone was bound to push up prices. As I said in an earlier post, looking at old price lists is only part of the story as you are viewing lists that were published in a world which was completely different to that of today, particularly as regards commerce and the purchase of consumer goods, both new and second hand. The information on those lists needs to interpreted in the light of that.

William

 

[Anbaric]

7 minutes ago, willeica said:

I would have been at the Photographica Fair in London on 19th May if I were not in Porto. I was on a research zoom yesterday with Tim Goldsmith, the President of the Photographic Collectors Club of Great Britain who run the fair. He said that they were staggered by the number of people attending, particularly those that were in younger age cohorts. They ran out of wristbands for entrants and had to use raffle tickets as substitutes. Normally in the old location the fair died down at lunchtime, but people were still queuing to get in at 4pm. Something is happening and we cannot put it all down to 'influencers'.

I think one thing they hadn't factored in is that the new location is right on the doorstep of a large international student population, just a few minutes walk from the main UCL campus etc. I noticed that some stallholders were starting to pack up when they might have profitably stayed longer (they probably had travel plans based on how the day used to go at the RHS hall). It's not just about influencers, of course, but they are a major, um, influence on this age group, who are much less likely to consult traditional sources of information. There are an awful lot of people promoting 'analogue cameras' on all the major social media platforms, many with big followings that dwarf the circulations of 'legacy media'. Back in the day, we used to buy Amateur Photographer to read Ivor Matanle's excellent classic camera articles. Today, they sell fewer than 7000 copies of each issue. The latest video (on the Nikon F2) from the Youtuber who made the M6 video above has had over 54000 views in 3 days, and he is one of many talking about film cameras. Ivor would have told us much more about the camera over 2 pages in AP than this guy manages in 38 minutes of his road trip, but that's probably missing the point - here this old Nikon is presented as part of a cool lifestyle that will be attractive to his many viewers, and some of them will be on ebay that evening looking for one.

[willeica]

2 hours ago, Anbaric said:

I think one thing they hadn't factored in is that the new location is right on the doorstep of a large international student population, just a few minutes walk from the main UCL campus etc. I noticed that some stallholders were starting to pack up when they might have profitably stayed longer (they probably had travel plans based on how the day used to go at the RHS hall). It's not just about influencers, of course, but they are a major, um, influence on this age group, who are much less likely to consult traditional sources of information. There are an awful lot of people promoting 'analogue cameras' on all the major social media platforms, many with big followings that dwarf the circulations of 'legacy media'. Back in the day, we used to buy Amateur Photographer to read Ivor Matanle's excellent classic camera articles. Today, they sell fewer than 7000 copies of each issue. The latest video (on the Nikon F2) from the Youtuber who made the M6 video above has had over 54000 views in 3 days, and he is one of many talking about film cameras. Ivor would have told us much more about the camera over 2 pages in AP than this guy manages in 38 minutes of his road trip, but that's probably missing the point - here this old Nikon is presented as part of a cool lifestyle that will be attractive to his many viewers, and some of them will be on ebay that evening looking for one.

Tim Goldsmith President of PCCGB did a lot of research when choosing the new location for Photographica. He is experienced in the whole issue of selling second hand film cameras, having previously worked with Astons Auctioneers and he is now an adviser to Chiswick Auctions. He has a huge personal camera collection and encyclopaedic knowledge of the field. 

I agree about Ivor etc and John Wade (who was also on our research zoom yesterday) is still writing for AP, but the audience reach of the magazine is a lot less than it used to be. Personally, I welcome the fact that young people are now very interested in old cameras and I don’t really care how they got there. Old fellas like myself will definitely be out-lived by our collections.

William 

[dpitt]

One of the things I really hate is that a lot of my friends and family members do not get what a Leica M is about.  I am talking about some that do have a nice and relatively expensive Nikon, Canon or Sony. They have seen me go from Nikon to Leica in the last 20 years, and I failed to convey even the most basic rangefinder principles. They seem to have a prejudice that Leica is expensive and probably not worth the extra expense compared to their equipment. And they simply do not want to take time to understand why I was so 'foolish' to spend so much for old and obsolete (🙂) gear. I just gave up...😞

They even fail to see that while I kept using my M8 and M9, they 'upgraded' at least 3 times over the years, which cost them more than my M8, M9 and my working kit of lenses together...

This video is one of the best introductions I have seen for a complete novice to get an idea how a rangefinder is different. There is a lot more to it, but I guess that it is enough to trigger the curiosity enough to investigate. 
Just to show that influencers and youtube can be a good thing.

 

[AndreasG]

Indeed, very well explained!

[willeica]

2 hours ago, dpitt said:

One of the things I really hate is that a lot of my friends and family members do not get what a Leica M is about.  I am talking about some that do have a nice and relatively expensive Nikon, Canon or Sony. They have seen me go from Nikon to Leica in the last 20 years, and I failed to convey even the most basic rangefinder principles. They seem to have a prejudice that Leica is expensive and probably not worth the extra expense compared to their equipment. And they simply do not want to take time to understand why I was so 'foolish' to spend so much for old and obsolete (🙂) gear. I just gave up...😞

They even fail to see that while I kept using my M8 and M9, they 'upgraded' at least 3 times over the years, which cost them more than my M8, M9 and my working kit of lenses together...

This video is one of the best introductions I have seen for a complete novice to get an idea how a rangefinder is different. There is a lot more to it, but I guess that it is enough to trigger the curiosity enough to investigate. 
Just to show that influencers and youtube can be a good thing.

 

You are right, the M is different and you once you get into it, it is impossible to let it go or unlearn it. I have learnt so much about composition with the Leica that I instinctively find myself trying to do the same thing with a smartphone when I don't have one of my Leica Ms with me. That said, it is not a camera for many photographic tasks, such as sport or wildlife, but I don't do that type of photography anymore. The M is small compared to the other models mentioned and that too is also a major plus. My days are of lugging around loads of kit are now gone and all I need is for eyes to hold up.

William 

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Look here: Interesting Leica gear

[dpitt]

10 hours ago, willeica said:

You are right, the M is different and you once you get into it, it is impossible to let it go or unlearn it. I have learnt so much about composition with the Leica that I instinctively find myself trying to do the same thing with a smartphone when I don't have one of my Leica Ms with me. That said, it is not a camera for many photographic tasks, such as sport or wildlife, but I don't do that type of photography anymore. The M is small compared to the other models mentioned and that too is also a major plus. My days are of lugging around loads of kit are now gone and all I need is for eyes to hold up.

William 

I can relate, as I get older too and my stamina is not what it used to be. So now compactness and weight get more and more important.

One thing that I learned is that the Leica M rangefinder without all the modern additions like LV and EVF does 80% of what I want to do, and it does most of that extremely well.
It is also by far the most enjoyable to use. One really needs to use it for a while to appreciate that. I knew what I was getting into when I bought my M8 15 years ago, but still it took me months to realize how much this way of working attributed to my way of seeing things.

An other conclusion for my use is that it is a mistake to try and make the M do things it is not designed for. I am thinking of subjects that require exact framing, tripod use, macro, short distance, tele work...
Okay for occasional use you can work around this, but having a mirrorless system to cover the area's outside the comfort zone of the Leica M is a far better strategy IMO. For the moment my Leica SL is fine if I do not have to carry it too far from home or car.  When I need to take it further,  my Leica TL2+EVF (often with a M lens) is the best option, or sometimes I just chose to live with the limitations of the M and use what I have with me.

Edited May 29, 2024 by dpitt

[dubois pierre]

On 5/25/2024 at 11:47 AM, willeica said:

I'm just giving general advice because I still don't understand what you are trying to achieve. The use of historical information should be approached with caution. You are viewing pricing information that was published in a world very different from the one we live in today.

William 

 

I am of the same opinion as William being in the same age group (70 years old). Everything is going very quickly now, perhaps too quickly in fact. When I started my collection in 1975 I felt like I was the only one in the world looking for and buying these old cameras. You could find Leicas Ia or II for a  morsel of bread and one day come across a rarity with a bit of luck. Moreover, professional or non-professional sellers at the time did not know the real value of the cameras they were selling since there was no basis for finding any information. The great revolution came in the 1995 with eBay and the launch of auctions online and the disconcerting ease with a simple right click of buying an item from home, quietly seated in front of your computer with a good coffee in order to 'be the most pugnacious in the last seconds. This is valid for other categories or objects of art such as vehicles for example. The world has moved very quickly in the collections sector and for some, they find it a safe haven. As I often said, instead of putting your money in the bank invested in a collectible Leica, you will be able to use it, admire it in a shop window and if necessary resell it without too much risk of losing your investment. But what was true yesterday is not necessarily true today given the prices which have exploded in recent years, especially with the Asian market which has destabilized the collection market. Some sellers believe that their camera is worth a fortune like at the moment a simple Leica IIIc with its Elmar 3.5-5 offered at 1300 euros!!!! on ebay. There is therefore no longer any rationality about a fair price except the one we want to put there.

Pierre