Building interest = rising prices

[Arbitrarium]

A few months ago I fancied trying out an Olympus 35RC, they were going for about £50 on the 'bay. I decided against it in the end.

Checked last night and they're selling for £80 or £90! I'd have expected to be paying that for an SP perhaps, but not an RC.

I guess it's a sign that interest is definitely building in film photography but the resulting price hikes are rather unpleasant.

Mju ii's are going for up to £200. I sold one for £70 about a year ago. XA2 and 3 are going for what rangefinder XA's went for a year ago.

I realise I'm entirely focusing on Olympus here but I'm sure it's not exclusive to them.

If it wasn't for those meddling kids...

 

[Alfonso B]

You need to get off eBay unless you are selling. Mju II prices are just stupid. They are constantly sold for less than 10 bucks and millions were made.

 

[Arbitrarium]

You need to get off eBay unless you are selling. Mju II prices are just stupid. They are constantly sold for less than 10 bucks and millions were made.

Yeah, I bought one for £10 and sold it for £70. Wish I'd waited a bit longer, could have fleeced someone for a massive profit... But I tend to sell things cheaper than other people anyway. Don't want to be part of the problem.

 

[John Bragg]

Not just Olympus cameras. Canon Sureshot Supreme, a p&s with superb lens was giving away a year ago and now averaging £20 - £30. I payed 99p for one not long ago and was the only bidder.

 

[Roger Hicks]

Not just Olympus cameras. Canon Sureshot Supreme, a p&s with superb lens was giving away a year ago and now averaging £20 - £30. I payed 99p for one not long ago and was the only bidder.

Dear John,

Exactly. Fashion, shading into hysteria.

Cheers,

R.

 

[benlees]

The lightening-strikes-once BIN prices are driving up prices across the board. This has happened in the last couple years. As all ways, try to get one from an auction and cross your fingers; auction sell prices seem to fluctuate 30%.

This applies even more to "trendy" cameras. You can still get a Rolleicord for not too much.😉

PS I sold an RC on RFF for $50 a couple months a go. Didn't sell right away. Patience!

 

[johnnyrod]

Prices do seem to be going up, asking prices at any rate, and I've also noticed the asking prices going very high in an attempt to drag the selling prices up as well. I don't know if it's working but it's frustrating. You should have a peruse of Gumtree, there is a steady stream of people who really don't know what they're selling, and quite often in the wrong categories.

 

[dmr]

Not only photo stuff, prices everywhere seem to be creeping upward.

 

[Arbitrarium]

Prices do seem to be going up, asking prices at any rate, and I've also noticed the asking prices going very high in an attempt to drag the selling prices up as well. I don't know if it's working but it's frustrating. You should have a peruse of Gumtree, there is a steady stream of people who really don't know what they're selling, and quite often in the wrong categories.

Yeah I check Gumtree every now and then. The Mju ii I got for a tenner was on preloved sold as "Olympus compact camera"

 

[Steve Bellayr]

The economy is coming back. Not only is this in cameras but on other vintage items. Vinyl is a good example.

 

[john_s]

Hmmm.... Asking price isn't the same as selling price which is its real value. BIN prices are all over the place and it takes time to find one that's not at an inflated price.

 

[sara]

Something I noticed recently as well and spoke it of it amongst friends.

I got my Contax T2 in 2015 for about £200. On eBay today, it's £400/500. Gosh!

And in a local photo lab where I work, Fuji Pro 400H's price has doubled.

:bang:

 

[Robert Lai]

You should check out Thomas the Tank Engine toys. The original wooden ones that run on wooden track. My wife bought tons of them when my son was 3. He only liked the ones he commonly saw on TV, so we ended up never opening up the less well known characters, which stayed in their boxes. Well, the boy is 8 now, and too old for Thomas trains.

My wife had bought bunches of these for about $10 when Toys R Us was trying to get rid of slow moving stock. 5 years later, these "Rare" characters, in unopened boxes have tremendous value. They typically sell for $50 - $80 each. That's far better than the stock market has done in that time. Yes, ebay is where you get the most money when selling.

 

[tunalegs]

The problem with ebay is that any lunatic can put a listing up with a lunatic price. And this can, after a long enough time, drive prices up artificially if enough scammers and clueless sellers end up unintentionally cornering the market.

A good example happened a few years ago, with people selling Kaypro computers. Usually people would put them up as auctions and they would sell for about $25-$50, with the odd freakish auction going up to $100 or so. But then a couple of people put up BIN listings, for $200+. Those listing sat, for months, and months, and months, and then some more months (no kidding one was up for over two years I think). The problem was, when none were up for auction, somebody who didn't know what they had would see those listings and then put theirs up for $200+ too. After a while there were about a dozen BIN listings all for over $200, for a "SUPER RARE!!! COLLECTIBLE!!! L@@K!!!!!!!!" Kaypro computer. I think it reached peak ridiculousness when there were about 24 "rare" and "valuable" pieces of junk listed on ebay, some of which stayed up for many months. The problem was that for a good while people were putting up auctions with the same high prices, so if somebody actually wanted one, they had to pay that much - or wait a few weeks for the seller to come to their senses and relist at a lower price after several failed auctions. This went on for a few years, then prices dropped again.

I've noticed this phenomenon happens most often with objects that are not truly rare, but just uncommon enough to be well known and sought after. Truly rare items (the kind of stuff that comes up maybe only once every year or two on ebay) often sell for nothing because there's not enough internet hype to drive prices, and if somebody can't find one on ebay that same week that they want it, they lose interest and stop looking.

 

[zuiko85]

Cheese, I'd better hold on to my RC, sure can't replace it for what it cost three or four years ago.

 

[Huss]

T..And this can, after a long enough time, drive prices up artificially if enough scammers and clueless sellers end up unintentionally cornering the market..

There are a few Leica sellers on ebay who do that. Have shell bidders bidding up the price and when they 'accidentally' end up as the winning bidder -because real bidders didn't take the bait - the item is mysteriously relisted a week or so later. With the excuse that the 'winning bidder' didn't pay.
And these sellers do this over and over again. I'm actually surprised that ebay does not have an algorithm that looks for this - sellers with an unusually high percentage of non payers.
Anyway, yeah stuff is getting more expensive. Especially as film photography is getting more popular and there are more an more articles in the main stream, as well as bloggers, talking about it.

 

[Contarama]

Black DE-1 Eyelevel finders are a case in point. I bought a mint one years ago for crazy money. Sold it to a member here for crazy money. I bought two a few months back on bodies for less than 200 (both from Asia where I hear collectors are not buying right now). Go look at them now just a few months later. I bet I could double my money and quickly at that. If they go up to much more I am off loading one for a profit plus getting the other for free. It is just stupid but I kind of like being on the seller side of it. Makes up for all the money I have wasted over the years I guess.

 

[Prest_400]

Anyway, yeah stuff is getting more expensive. Especially as film photography is getting more popular and there are more an more articles in the main stream, as well as bloggers, talking about it.

Indeed. I found particularily amusing the hype for Nikon F4s a month or so ago. Basically 2 or 3 quite popular youtube channels praised it, the best of that is that they did it almost simultaneously.

 

[David Murphy]

After an initial near collapse when digital came along, I have watched film camera prices, particularly for the collectible gear, rise and fall several times over the last 20 years. It is economy dependent to some extent.

Right now however, I think prices are on the rise. The economy is one reason, another I think is that fact that new film camera and lens production is close to nil.

 

[mani]

I simply don't understand this lofty, patronizing, dismissive attitude from the RFF old-timers.

Why exactly are the laws of supply and demand "Fashion" or "hysteria"?

More and more people are discovering film photography, but naturally the old guard here feel the need to insult and belittle newcomers for their naive stupidity paying 'inflated' prices for film cameras.

I can't even say how many times I've seen the economic idocy of people on RFF saying stuff like "I can't believe buyers are paying $nnn for camera-X. I have four of them gathering dust on my shelf..." Ye DUH! If all the old fogeys would actually release their dusty old cameras onto the market, there wouldn't be scarcity pricing for the ones that are available.

Aside from this simple commonsense, I'm frankly sick to death of hearing from the RFF old-timers how new film enthusiasts are just buying the cameras as 'fashion' accessories. The only amazing thing about this thread is that nobody has blamed the high prices on 'hipsters'.

Masses of new people are getting interested in film. They need to buy cameras. Get over it.