Leitz’s problem is not that too many people are buying used cameras (and by extension, not that they have, for too long, been building high quality durable products). At a theoretical level, the claim is silly. The value of a product on the secondary market is capitalized in its new price. That is, an important reason that Leitz has for so long been able to command such high prices is that a Leica camera can be resold for a substantial fraction of what it cost new and it will continue to have a high resale value for decades because it has a useful life stretching into decades. Some may object that people don’t really take into account what a camera will sell for in the used market when they decide whether to buy it, but my point doesn’t really depend on that in any important way. It’s just another way of saying that a Leica represents real value – it’s an elegant machine that will give decades of excellent service – and that is why they sell for high prices. The extensive used market, far from being a reason why Leitz is in difficulties now, is an important reason why Leitz has, for so long, been able to sell high quality cameras for a price that fully reflects their value.
If you don’t like theoretical explanations, here’s a practical one. Look at the “How old are you” thread. Many of us are thirty, forty, fifty years old but *still* own no cameras younger than us (I’m thirty seven and own one camera younger than I am – a Contax G2 – and several older than I am – Crown Graphic, Minox B, Rolleiflex 2.8f, Hasselblad 500C). The used market, that is, has been around for a long, long time. It doesn’t look substantially different today than it did before many of us were born. In 1967 there were a lot of used Leicas on the market and a thriving trade in them. Today, there are a lot of used Leicas on the market and a thriving trade in them. Why is it a problem only now? How is it that something that hasn’t changed (the used market) explains something that has (the Leitz bottom line)? It doesn’t.
A better explanation is not that the used market is thriving, but that it may not continue to do so. As I said, a Leica is an elegant machine that is capable of giving decades of excellent service. But the rapid rise in the quality of digital processes has put a question mark over film’s future. I’m not saying that film will ever go away completely, just that in the future, film will no longer be used for many things it was used for in the past. As a result, there is reason to doubt the scope of the future used market for Leica cameras (it will certainly continue to exist, but it won’t be the same secondary market that Leicas have benefited from for so many years). The rapid rise in quality of digital cameras has put the same question mark over a digital body’s fate – you don’t buy a digital camera today knowing that you or someone else will still be using it forty years from now, you buy it knowing that it will be obsolete in two or three years. In such a climate, you can’t get from the market the same return on a product capable of being used for decades as you could if people knew they would use it for decades.
There is some hope, of course, demonstrated by products like the R-D1. The future of the M body may be in doubt, but there’s no reason that the future of the M lens need be. I think those who have suggested that Leitz may have a bright future concentrating on high quality optics make an excellent point.
