We may have left the golden age of secondhand gear

Any time can be a "golden era" depending on what you are shopping for.

Medium format folding cameras are the perennial wallflowers of the camera world, particularly if they lack coupled rangefinder or 4-element lenses.
 
JeffS7444 said:
Any time can be a "golden era" depending on what you are shopping for.

Medium format folding cameras are the perennial wallflowers of the camera world, particularly if they lack coupled rangefinder or 4-element lenses
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"Golden Era" is more than just a find or two....especially for simple wallflowers. Let me know when there are sub $1k black paint Leica Ms, and Xpans and Rolleiflex 2.8f whiteface....
 
To get a camera system together that uses film, e.g., for someone who wants to start out making pictures, you can get a Nikon N90 or similar and an SB-25 for not much more than the price of postage. The N90 is really a great camera. I've used one for decades. Pentax is available for low prices, too. A Konica SLR system costs little, too. So, for that slice of the photo world, it is the golden age now.
 
There are lots of good deals around if you are prepared to look. But as gear ages more will require servicing so this really needs to be costed in too now. Any golden age probably meant that it was a period of time when stuff still worked without much need of servicing and/or repair.

A UK dealer recently advertised (it went quickly) a Nikon F with 50/1.4 for £59 - the description indicated that shutter speeds were off and I don't think that the meter worked. I'd guess a lot of Nikon Fs are like this now as lubricants dry out and electronics need attention. Perhaps prices for a lot of gear are too high and buyers allow them to be because they don't reflect on what might need doing.
 
I just took a picture of my shoes with a band spanking new Nikon Z8, which is wearing, of all things, a 50 DR Summicron. I love using adapted lenses and the Z8 will be a perfect camera for that kind of play. But I also have a stable of Pentax M42 glass, some Konica AR glass, and many tasty rangefinder treats to mount on the thing. So you better believe I soaked up a lot of the 1980's lens inventory and won't be putting it back out on the market. So it isn't "over" -- it is sitting in my photo cabinet ready for its new lease on life!
 
With the internet so widespread nowadays, It is common for almost any shop to have access to eBay.
 
Prices on Leica- up. Prices on German lenses up. Prices on Contax RF bodies- about the same.
Prices on Nikon, Canon, other Japanese RF cameras and lenses- way down.

I've picked up a lot of Japanese lenses at 1/4th the price they went for 10 years ago.
 
A lot of this seems rear view mirror stuff to me.

You can still get gear for peanuts these days, but guess what, it's not what you're currently looking for. So you give it a pass. Fast forward five years, and suddenly that gear has gotten hip. Prices have skyrocketed and you're reminiscing those days you could get it for peanuts.

The golden age of second hand gear is right now if you can predict the future.
 
There was a "golden age for secondhand gear"? Hmm. I have been in this photographic gear market for a very long time: prices on various gear I've bought and sold have gone up and down by radical amounts over the past sixty years, both new and used, film and digital.

All I can say for certain is that I can now afford some of the Hasselblad V system gear that I once considered too far out of reach of my pay grade to consider at all. So I bought some, over the past decade or so, and I enjoy it. At the prices I've paid, when it comes time, I can likely sell it for about the same price now, unlike the depreciation of 10-20 years ago.

I don't need much gear these days, I have most everything I'd ever want to use and then some, so what the prices are doing currently I'm not in touch with.

G
 
Archiver said:
I... I need to know more about this! 😱
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Some might find this to be an interesting story.:cool: This was about ten years ago.

A local pawn shop listed the Leica on craigslist, and a friend of mine alerted me.

I called them immediately, and told them I'd be there in 20 minutes to pick it up, so 'please hold it for me.'

When I arrived, they wouldn't sell it to me. They gave some cockamamie story about it 'now being listed on ebay.'

I reminded them that I had called them a few minutes earlier and they had agreed to hold it for me.

They wouldn't budge.

My friend's sister just happens to be a manager of another pawn shop location.

So I called my friend, who called his sister, who called the pawn shop chain regional manager, who told the store manager to sell it to me.

I walked out with a perfect condition black paint MP with a black 50 Summilux pre-asph, $600 plus tax.
 
JeffS7444 said:
What did your golden age look like? Mine was not so impressive unless you considered 1200 USD for a garden variety M6 or Hasselblad Xpan cheap, which I didn't.
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A black paint M2 from the Leica Store in Paris for $700 Cdn... in the late 1990s... Rolleiflex for $350. Xpans & Mamiya 6 at their prices when new.
 
I've made several mistakes selling items too soon, just before they were discontinued and the price went way up: XPAN; 50mm Noctilux; Tri-Elmar; Mamiya 7. I'm trying to learn a lesson from it, not yet sure what it is. To keep things longer, in order to be more sure of whether I want them, maybe. I seem not to like anything new until I've had it for quite a while. I find something I don't like and dump it.
 
Deardorff38 said:
A black paint M2 from the Leica Store in Paris for $700 Cdn... in the late 1990s... Rolleiflex for $350. Xpans & Mamiya 6 at their prices when new.
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Sounds like a series of one-time purchases, ranging from alright to fabulous, but to me, "Golden Age" implies that such were common at one time. But I'm pretty sure that the last time black paint M2s could be readily had for 700 CDN would have been before my Leica-fan years, which began in the early 1990s.

But even in the early aughties, 1000 USD seemed like a good deal of money to me! I had to think twice and thrice before agreeing to buy an $800 pre-asph 35/2 Leica Summicron from a buddy, passed on a $1200 original Tri-Elmar at a local dealer, thought I had taken leave of my senses when I purchased a new 50/1 Noctilux @ $2700.
 
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