Olympus 35 RD ~ Why so rare?

[Seoulseb]

I'm lucky enough to own four 35 series rangefinders including the RD but I'm wondering why is the RD in fact so rare and hard to find? Did they not make a lot of them? Are people just hanging on to them? I wasnt hunting for this camera but when I saw it in an old camera shop I bought it, no questions asked and don't regret it one bit. I certainly will be hanging onto mine.

 

[Brian Legge]

I picked up a clean one and sent it to Zuiko.com for service.

I went on a LTM binge for a while and thought about selling the RD but know I'll come back to it in time. Once Zuiko.com stopped servicing rangefinders... I definitely decided to hanging on to mine. Replacing it in the future with a serviced one would be challenging. 🙂

 

[Bill58]

A couple of things make them rare, I think. One, they were more expensive than the ordinary Oly RF of the day, like the RC; two, they almost all suffer nowadays from oil on the blades, so I suspect there are many inoperative ones in people's drawers lying there unusable.

 

[David_Manning]

Mine's in great shape. I've thought about selling it, but it looks nice on the shelf. I had it reskinned and it looks like new, and functions perfectly. In fact, my oldest daughter has taken quite a liking to it...

 

[Retrotech68]

Great portrait, by the way, David. Well done!

 

[David_Manning]

Thanks. It was an accident, I swear! We were on an evening neighborhood photo stroll, and the image presented itself!

 

[Retrotech68]

Ok, I believe you! Now we'll wait for some images by your daughter, taken with that RD!
A friend has just told me that he passed up a nice opportunity to get a nice RD a couple because he heard Zuiko.com is no longer servicing rangefinders... I suggested some repairers in the UK that still do Oly r/fs, but it seems he lost interest.