Investment grade?

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Roger Hicks

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Nikon S3 Year 2000 Millennium Model, lens, box, shipping carton, ERC, instruction book, £1895 VAT paid at Gray's of Westminster. (AP 18 April page 21)

Recommended retail £3,800. For the hard of mathematics that's £1,905 more than Gray is asking.

And people dismiss Leica 'commemoratives'? At least they're just variations on existing cameras. Any camera will command more than its new price if you keep it long enough. But I can't help wondering how long it takes for 'commemoratives' and the like (from any manufacturers) to exceed their original prices.

Tashi delek,

R.
 
The only correct answer is "It varies all over the place!" The price is dependant on what a willing buyer offers a willing seller. Thre are probably a lot more people looking for a fairly clean shooter at a reasonable price than for a special commemorative edition. That situation tends to enhance the value of shooters and depresses the price of commemoratives.

Sure, some cameras become worth a fortune, but there's really no way to tell which ones or when it'll happen. It's best to look at cameras as tools and put your investment money someplace else. Right now the real estate market is really distressed so investing in housing and using it as rental property would be a better investment than any camera.
 
Interesting point Roger, "first come, first served" - says the full page ad., I wonder if they have any takers yet. Looking back through their AP ads shows that they have been trying to shift two or three of these, in a small ad, for quite a long time....must be getting desparate - going full page!.
Dave.
 
Could be the depression/recession kicking in on camera sales and prices.
Or maybe the Nikon S3 Year 2000 Millennium Model wasn't such a great idea from the start as they thought it would be.
Best regards
 
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i think i remember reading in some book that claimed cameras are a good investment, that increase in value more than many other items 11% rings a bell. of course this is all subjective. no doubt there are some people that collect cameras and find some way to make money out of them, it not my chosen field of investment that for sure, though i imagine my kids might make a bit of money off the odd camera or two when i go to the big darkroom in the sky.

buy cheap and sell for lots...you just have to be around to enjoy the rewards eh..just the other day a 1952 bakelite Welta box camera [broken!], that probably cost about $5 when new, sold for about US$860 !!! not a bad return i suppose
 
Film camera prices are as low as I've seen them for a few years, including classic cameras. Look for an acceleration of Rolleiflex prices though - Franke & Heidecke GmbH is bankrupt. Rolleiflex prices, particularly for 2.8 Planar's, were already achieving prices beyond the reach of many buyers.
 
Hmm A really good investment was the VW Lupo 3L when it first came out. It was so popular that if you were lucky enough to get one you could sell it again for more than its retail price. 🙂 That ended offcource when the deliveries caught up with the demand for it.
Best regards
 
Roger,

It seems to me that they only ever realise good money under two conditions - they are really rare, and unused.

Sorry, but I buy a camera to use it 😉
 
Actually, if you like Nikon RFs, I suppose it's a very good price for a new, user camera.

Better than £3600 anyway.

What's £1900? About $2600 or 2250€.

Cheers,

R.
 
I bought the celebrated (Ken rockwell) Nikon 18-200mm VR in 2006 and sold 10 months later for a slight profit as they were a bit scarce and I had bought it on duty free.
 
Forget cameras Roger ... you're a motorcyclist so I'm sure you'll relate to this.

Back in the early 1970's I was working at a Ducati dealership and the owner of the business offered me a brand new in the box 750 Supersport Ducati ... they had too many in stock that weren't moving and he was prepared to sell a couple to staff members at import price to keep things turning over ... the price offered was around $1100.00 from memory but I passed on the deal.

One sold on eBay recently for just under one hundred thousand dollars US! 😱
 
Buying "collectors editions" as an investment is the equivalent of hoarding Franklin Mint products - the appreciation is entirely among a closed circle of insiders, and as their number does not dwindle through usage and as they lack any inherent historical value (other than the "strange fetishes of the past" aspect, which won't convince any museum to drop more money on them than on a Pokemon deck), prices are bound to collapse once the attraction wears out...

Sevo
 
A couple of years ago some "Investors" might have tried to jack the prices of cameras up. I'm guessing they did not do so well.

I can usually sell cameras and lenses for more than I paid for them. I can take one that needs some minor work, fix it, test it, and when i'm tired of having three just like it, might sell it. I go after "film money" profit margins. But I'm not going to make a "killing" on the S3-2000 bought at B&H for $2400. I'll use it until they quit making film. Then, I'm resigned to converting a Nikon F to digital using an F36, unless I can find a dirt-cheap S36.

Now, I might be able to make a killing on the Black Leica III with Elmar, Leica IIIa with Summar, Rollieflex V, and Rollie 35TE that set me back $60 at an antique store. At that price, they were investment grade. And they take good pictures.
 
Keith said:
Forget cameras Roger ... you're a motorcyclist so I'm sure you'll relate to this.

Back in the early 1970's I was working at a Ducati dealership and the owner of the business offered me a brand new in the box 750 Supersport Ducati ... they had too many in stock that weren't moving and he was prepared to sell a couple to staff members at import price to keep things turning over ... the price offered was around $1100.00 from memory but I passed on the deal.

One sold on eBay recently for just under one hundred thousand dollars US! 😱
Click to expand...

Good for you. In 1999 I paid £6750 for a brand new Ducati 750 Supersport, which was then devalued immediately when Ducati knocked £1000 off the list price three months later... I kept it for about six years and sold it for £2000. It's probably still worth around £2000 four years later, so we can deduce the moral of this particular story.

Mind you a chap I used to know bought a set of tyres for his VW that cost him over £10,000. This was because he sold the shares he'd been given in the dot.com company he worked for to raise the £150 he needed to buy the tyres. Within a couple of years those shares were worth over £10,000.:bang:
 
Keith said:
Forget cameras Roger ... you're a motorcyclist so I'm sure you'll relate to this.

Back in the early 1970's I was working at a Ducati dealership and the owner of the business offered me a brand new in the box 750 Supersport Ducati ... they had too many in stock that weren't moving and he was prepared to sell a couple to staff members at import price to keep things turning over ... the price offered was around $1100.00 from memory but I passed on the deal.

One sold on eBay recently for just under one hundred thousand dollars US! 😱
Click to expand...

reminds me of my good ol 1978 HZ GTS Holden (Monaro-sic), never actually officially called a monaro but just GTS, but at the time considered the best holden off the line. it was in mint condition [my little oz pet car] bought from new for about A$6000 but stolen a few years back, now they are advertised for up to $250 000...just not fair! not that i would have ever sold it
 
I've always assumed, without really thinking about it too much, that if you know what you're doing and have plenty of $$$ then trading in rare anything might make you a profit (as long as you can time your purchases and sales: there's nothing like a forced sale to ruin a profit model).

[However: investing in huge quantities of embalmed fish recently struck me as somewhat pushing the limits of the idea, no matter how "savvy" the buyer thought he was.]

Because I don't know what I'm doing I certainly wouldn't invest in anything camera-related. While I can't claim my interest in different cameras is "only about the photographs" it isn't entirely unrelated either. I am interested in trying different types of cameras to see what they're like to use and what kind of photos they might be good at taking (in my admittedly inexpert hands).

It's how I came to try (and now love) rangefinders. It's why I bought a Contax G2 kit - it's rather different from other cameras I've used. It's why I bought a Hexar non-RF, an MF SLR, various FSUs and so on. It's why I'm thinking about a TLR, and maybe also trying an MF folder. All of them have been "good users" (except for the FSUs, which are more of a crap-shoot but not too expensive to try 'till you get a good one). So, I assume none of my camera gear is "investment grade" at all.

I only have one possible "collectible" - a UC Hexanon 35. But I use that all the time. I only have one item I imagine has appreciated in value - a Summilux 75. I use that even more.

I suspect I'll stick with my main cameras being one or more dSLRs, my beloved Hexar RFs and M3, and my stalwart OM-4. Other cameras I'll try then move on from (digital, by reducing the price of "old fashioned" film cameras, has very much enabled this, as has eBay and the like).

But who knows, I may fall in love with a TLR if I ever get around to trying one. And if it turns out to be "investment grade" then, well, that will be an accident and I'll probably use the thing to take photographs.

...Mike
 
How long are you planning on living? Investment in objects should not be for profit unless you buy them at wholesale prices. The market runs this way: On intial offererings you pay an retail price. If the object becomes desireable the price will rise quickly but will eventually level off and even turn down, possibly lower than the initial offering. Then it may gradually rise and fall. On the other hand if the object is not desireable for any of many reasons it may fall into obscurity and never rise. Inflation rates must be taken into consideration vis-a-vis other investment stratagies. (A $100 lens never used purchased in 1969 would sell for $576.84 at the rate of inflation over those years. However, had you invested that $100 in a bank account at 4% that money would be worth today $480.10.) Betting on what will be valuable 40 years in the future is never a guarantee.
 
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