« Guest Post: Robert Plotkin on the X100 | Main | Kirk's Take (Kirk Tuck #2) »

Saturday, 03 December 2011

Comments

Feed You can follow this conversation by subscribing to the comment feed for this post.

The Roller: hardly looks worth three Leicas.

Funny I've had my iphone4 for about 2 months now and I haven't tried the camera once. My thinking is I most always have a real camera close by so why would I take pictures with my phone? I might try it out if someone can tell me where to load the film.

The price of the well worn M2 indicates that it is a camera with a "history". It probably was used by some well-known photographer which would add to its value. The battered shape reminds me of Gary Winogrand's M4 which you can see here:
http://www.cameraquest.com/LeicaM4G.htm
Somehow I'm unable to find the link to the auction you mentioned. I'm sure we'd find some interesting information on the history of this particular piece of equipment there.

Best regards
Werner

2 comments. Got the iphone a week ago. My son was right. It is an incredibly useful tool that, by the way, has a phone built in to it. I've shot 3 short videos for our newspaper website in a week. Instead of a half-day's work to get the video downloaded, edited on a pc or mac and uploaded to the site, it now takes me less than a 1/2 hour. Even the audio is decent.
Don't buy the Rolls Royce. It's British. I've had a 1972 MGB for 16 years. Fun, when it runs.

In 1980, my friend Jeff purchased a working M2, with much more brass showing than your example, from a local photo dealer fro $300. It was a OK deal. $3000+ for this example is a bad deal...for the buyer.

As far as I can tell, Rolls Royces and other luxury cars have generally had relatively poor 2nd-hand value for ever, essentially. Certainly I remember looking around in 2005 or so, and quite decent looking 70s cars were affordable in the UK. I was actually looking for a Bristol, they being much more interesting cars, but both were pretty affordable. What put me off, then as now, is that they're really big cars, have really awful fuel economy, and are not cheap to maintain, if you get a new enough one to be a practical driving proposition (so excluding the Bristol-engined Bristols, which are what you'd actually want, of course). I suspect those factors explain the cheap prices.

Robert, that was the non-working one that you picked up for less then 200 USD? :-)

Three G's buys a very nice printer. If you look there is also a black paint M3 on E Bay for seventeen big ones. Sheesh...

I just spent $27 on a Russian Leica knockoff. I'm pretty sure that 125 or so of those are still not as cool as the camera above. Wouldn't pay that kind of money for either.

Hmmm, as compared to the $100,000 2 year old Honda Civic I bought myself here in Singapore some years ago.

Lucky,lucky Waukeshans!

I'll bet that a Leica decal for an iPhone would be a good seller!

I owned an old Rolls for a while: like all British cars, the key requirement was alligator clips and long lengths of wire, so you could follow the Golden Rule -- "if in doubt, bypass."

Did 60's Rolls Royces have electrical bits from Lucas (aka "The Prince of Darkness")?

In answer to Bill, there's British and there's British Leyland.

Like any other car, a Rolls is not infallible but close and the company has always gone to great lengths to meet the expectations of its customers, even years after the original purchase. BL cars of the 70s, like MG, were off the road for more than they were on and soon disappeared into a hill of rust. We had a Daimler (a tarted-up Jaguar) and small Austin in the family during the 70s and both were unreliable and rust prone, despite the disparity in price. Few shed tears when the state-owned BL dinosaur was forced into extinction in the 80s.

PS Of course, the Rolls of today has a little German blood but so does the Royal Family ;-)

my neighbour in mumbai/india recently bought a brand new Rolls for something approaching a million usd incl customs duty and taxes... i am told he is thinking of buying a gas station as well !!!!!

EVERYTHING in Britain in the 50s & 60's had something from Joe Lucas's world of darkness -- the wonderful world of voltage regulators and generators and negative earth. And, 1978-1979 or so, I was picking up working Leica screwmounts for 35 to 50 pounds apiece, so it was a pretty good time, I have to admit.

Some interesting iPhone work in B&W from Beijing:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/57514659@N02/6237214821/in/photostream

The problem with a used R-R, or any other luxury car, is the 'deferred maintenance' issue. The used-car value goes down but the price of service does not, and many owners let their cars deteriorate to the point where the cost of refurbishment is far greater than the car's value. So the low entry price hides potentially huge future costs...
Luckily Leicas are less expensive to keep running, unless like me you manage to splash salt water on yours.

I wonder if that much brassing really is genuine and not modified for the looks?

The comments to this entry are closed.

Portals




Stats


Blog powered by Typepad
Member since 06/2007