It's difficult to know if posts are meant in humor. History of a users post made on different forums, over the years produce impressions. When a particular person gets banned from multiple forums for making the same type of posts, "the light-hearted humor" went over like a lead balloon. From now on, I'll just view all posts like this as meant in jest. Too silly to be taken seriously.
As far as current Leica prices: The Chinese collectors seem to be driving the cost of Leica prices, much like the Japanese collectors did in the 1990s. The Japanese market seems to have lost interest, prices of lenses out of Japan are ~20% of their peak. Difficult to know how long this trend will last. Prices of a Nikkor 5cm F1.1 are way down, 20% of what they sold for at the peak of interest. Good time to cash in on certain lenses and cameras, and a good time to buy some that were high-priced a few years ago. Some very interesting, low-production lenses such as the Canon 50/2.2 -made for 6 months- are around $125 now. Minolta Chiyoko LTM lenses- also a fraction of what they sold for a few years ago, unique in design for 1950s.
