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9 minutes ago, jaapv said:

You still buy them….

Yes, I bought them when they were already overpriced at $200. Now they're obscenely overpriced. I have to believe you can understand the difference. 

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24 minutes ago, hdmesa said:

Yes, I bought them when they were already overpriced at $200. Now they're obscenely overpriced. I have to believe you can understand the difference. 

There’s also the fact that you and I don’t have a choice because of what could be called anticompetitive practices. 

That said, I’m willing to be called insane because I quite dislike what the company is overall, but I love their m10 series cameras for making pictures. (Not so much their m8s, m9s - better though, 240s, or 11s).  

I really wish a Japanese manufacturer would make a great reproduction “inspired by” digital Leica - as they have done with so many other classic items.
 

Fuji hasn’t gotten it yet. If they ever did, I’d probably dump my whole kit in a heartbeat for it. 

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Just book a cheap fight to Europe, spend a nice weekend and buy all the batteries you need for 170 apiece. The price difference will pay for your airline ticket 

Despite all the press fluff Americans as persons are still welcome visitors. 

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1 hour ago, jaapv said:

Just book a cheap fight to Europe, spend a nice weekend and buy all the batteries you need for 170 apiece. The price difference will pay for your airline ticket 

Despite all the press fluff Americans as persons are still welcome visitors. 

Not a bad idea.

The saving grace is that the M11 batteries last forever. I have one extra, and it's rarely needed.

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On 5/5/2025 at 8:43 PM, jaapv said:

I doubt it. 

they don’t simply pass through the cost…especially for luxury products.

They also don’t earn based on per camera sale. 
 

 

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7 hours ago, sandro said:

I don't really see why Leica would have to absorb all or even most of the tariffs started by Trump. It is sad that prices of many things will go up and are already rising, but it is a US policy problem in the first place. When companies like Leica are supposed to swallow such measures, they may as well close their doors because it would mean a license for anybody in power to do the same.

Lex

Not just that, the owners of the company will want to maintain profits. Absorption of the tariffs will therefore mean the 7.7 billion of us not American paying for the Orange King’s hubris. I didn’t vote for him and I’m not interested in paying. 
 

Agree the best way round it is book a nice holiday and spend the tariff money enjoying yourself and boosting the local economy in Europe/Asia instead, you are indeed welcome!

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Posted (edited)

Leica will lose income whatever choice they make: absorb the increase and they lose out. Pass on the increase and they sell less, and lose out.

In their shoes* I would pass on the full tariff and exchange rate loss, make it clear what (and who) the increase is attributable to, and wait for articulate US Leica owners to express their views. Loudly, and somewhere other than this forum. (Express them here as well, of course, but that will have no impact).

 

(But Leica never did ask me to be CEO).

Edited by LocalHero1953
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Is this not exactly what the USA administration intends? Stop Americans from buying imported goods and support local industry? So the idea is to stimulate the production of all-American rangefinder cameras. 
Why should Leica attempt to thwart this intention by subsidizing the internal American market at the cost of the rest of the world? I say turn Leitz NewYork into a production facility! It can be done-they did so in Canada once. 

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7 hours ago, jaapv said:

Just book a cheap fight to Europe, spend a nice weekend and buy all the batteries you need for 170 apiece. The price difference will pay for your airline ticket 

Despite all the press fluff Americans as persons are still welcome visitors. 

As long as they’re accompanied by adults 

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Posted (edited)
1 hour ago, jaapv said:

Is this not exactly what the USA administration intends? Stop Americans from buying imported goods and support local industry? So the idea is to stimulate the production of all-American rangefinder cameras. 
Why should Leica attempt to thwart this intention by subsidizing the internal American market at the cost of the rest of the world? 

Precisely!  Leica is exporting a product at the same price point before and after tariffs.  As mentioned countless times, the tariff is applied by the IMPORTER who then pays that money to the US Government.  Neither the exporter nor the importer is making any more money.  It is the US consumer that is being taxed when the product is purchased.  

This is a tax INCREASE levied by the US Government on its own population.  Let's stop blaming Leica for a cost increase that has been imposed by the US Government.

Edited by T25UFO
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16 hours ago, jaapv said:

Is this not exactly what the USA administration intends? Stop Americans from buying imported goods and support local industry? So the idea is to stimulate the production of all-American rangefinder cameras. 
Why should Leica attempt to thwart this intention by subsidizing the internal American market at the cost of the rest of the world? I say turn Leitz NewYork into a production facility! It can be done-they did so in Canada once. 

Would they have to import all the parts too or full force manufacturing domestically? I might think those that come from wetzlar germany consist of part that manufacture from all over the world… they might minimize the tariffs increase but not diminish completely 

 

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As a US maker, a possible Leica US subsidiary would have to pay US import taxes on parts made elsewhere, including the new tariffs if the parts were not made in Russia, Belarus, Cuba or North Korea.

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The general idea seems to be that each and every part must be made in the USA or at worst a in country that has managed to get a zero tariff. 

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Can you imagine a Cuban made M11 P Safari - turn around times for repairs anywhere between 2-3years. Russian made batteries and lenses renamed from 1960’s Zenith glass.. 😎

 

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Posted (edited)
30 minutes ago, lct said:

As a US maker, a possible Leica US subsidiary would have to pay US import taxes on parts made elsewhere, including the new tariffs if the parts were not made in Russia, Belarus, Cuba or North Korea.

My suspicion is that it will be a simple approach - a ship comes in from China, everything will get hit with the “China” tariff, at least as a starting point.  

There’s plenty of talk of components made in China being assembled in a 10% tariff country, and being stamped “Made in xxx”.  For complex manufactured items, this is going to be hopeless to administer - my e-bike has a carbon frame, made in Taiwan (the biggest maker of carbon bike frames); the Shimano running gear is variously made in Japan, Malaysia and China; the Bosch motor is made in Hungary and the battery made in Korea; the Specialized saddle (branded as a US company) are made in China; the Maxxis tyres could be made in the company’s home of Korea, or China, Vietnam, Thailand, India, the US, the Netherlands or Germany; and the Galfer brake rotors are made in Spain.

The whole bike is sold by Spanish company Orbea (from the Basque region).  Which part of the shrinking US Federal Government is going to work out that lot?  My guess is, they’ll call it Spanish and apply the tariff accordingly.  If this odd approach to trade with the US (note, NOT international trade), there will be a lot of slight of hand and convenient labelling.  Almost no part of a Specialized bike (from California) is made in the US - will they set up plants making their frames, handlebars, forks, suspension, saddles, electronics, chains, tyres, batteries and saddles in the US?  And that’s for a simple bicycle.

I can’t take any of this seriously.  No wonder some ships and aeroplanes en route to the US have been turned back.

Edited by IkarusJohn
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On 5/10/2025 at 5:57 AM, jaapv said:

Why should they? Even if they absorbed pat of the tariff, they would sell fewer. They would have to take a double hit. 

They may absorb but charge them back from rest of the world to maintain a good P&L.🥲🥲

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