Collectors and users

[Roger Hicks]

Few of us can resist buying a interesting camera at the right price, even if we know it will receive little or no use: I never put a film through my 127 Gallus, for example. In other words, most of us 'collect' to some extent. It's just that few of us can afford to collect new, limited edition Leicas. So why should we denigrate those who do?

From about 1969 to about 1975 I used to collect (screw-mount) Leicas. Sure, I put a film or two through all of them, and lots of films through some of them. I quit when I realized I had well over £2000 (maybe £15,000 in current money) in substantially unused cameras and lenses in my toy cupboard: 'unused' in the sense that I wasn't really using them. Selling them gave me more than enough money to buy cameras and lenses I preferred to use: another M-body, my first 35 Summilux, etc.

Selling them, though, was a purely financial decision. If I'd been able to keep them, I would have -- and I'd probably still have them, as do some of the friends I met (and still value today) through Leica collecting.

So how much of the sniping at collectors is simply sour grapes?

Cheers,

R.

 

[Arjay]

Hm - I guess, individuals' spending habits are nothing that should be criticised. I think we all have our quirks.

What worries me more is that there's a company out there that sees its business model more in catering to collectors than to keep an interesting camera system alive and affordable for those that actually use these things. Have they run out of R&D steam?

 

[Roger Hicks]

What worries me more is that there's a company out there that sees its business model more in catering to collectors than to keep an interesting camera system alive and affordable for those that actually use these things. Have they run out of R&D steam?

Who, Rollei?

Would you rather have the option of insanely expensive TLRs and Rollei 35s, or NO Rollei TLRs and 35s?

How much 'R+D' can you apply to something you got right years ago? This is akin to arguing that a go-ahead manufacturer would re-examine the concept that bicycles have only two wheels. Or any wheels at all, instead of being maglev, hovercraft or anti-gravity.

Cheers,

R.

 

[Brian Legge]

My main frustration with collectors is how much it drives up prices. Those with 10 Ms are pushing up the demand, making it harder for people on tighter budgets. When the cameras just go into storage, its difficult to not be a little annoyed.

Big picture, no one is doing anything wrong. Supply and demand and all. Doesn't mean I wish half of them would stop so prices could drop more naturally. And I'm aware I'm a complete hypocrite on this point as I have about 2 dozen cameras in the $10-50 range.

 

[Keith]

This whole collectors and users discussion has as much potential for resolution as the film verses digital argument IMO ... which is not much! 😛

I have more issue with the companies that deliberately market items aimed at collectors than the collectors themselves. Buying a camera like the M9ti to stash away is about as hollow as buying a reproduction antique and no real collector with genuine interest in rare or exotic items would do so in my book. More likely it's fodder for some tosser with too much disposable income who wants bragging rights to compensate for no genuine taste or class!

 

[Roger Hicks]

@ Brian: I'm not sure it does drive up prices. There aren't many collectors, as compared with users, and most of the cameras they want aren't the everyday 'cooking' Leicas that most of us use to take pictures. Besides, the ones that buy 'collector' editions that most of us aren't interested in anyway, especially the Titan, are buying NEW Leicas (not second-hand ones) and thereby helping to keep Leica in business, unlike those who buy second-had 'user' cameras.

@Keith: Of course you're right about the impossibility of resolving the question, but what puzzles me is why there's a question at all. I personally know only one person who has almost certainly bought a Titan, but he's certanly not bragging about it and he is extremely generous in allowing historians access to his collection. If you re-read your own post, doesn't it come close to sour grapes? "Someone else has more money than I, and they shouldn't have, but I am consoled by the fact that unlike me they have no taste or class."

Cheers,

R.

 

[Arjay]

Roger, I wasn't aware that Rollei still exists. I'm actually thinking along the line with Keith: Leica still exists, but has stopped innovating a long time ago. The M9Ti isn't an innovation, but rather an artificially 'rarified' collector's item.

It's ok to collect for a customer, but it is a shame for a company to focus on reproducing the past instead of working on the future.

The fact that per se, new Leica cameras are out of my reach financially, doesn't make me angry or jealous of those who can still afford them, but highlights a serious marketing problem for Leica: They sell so little cameras that the per-item manufacturing setup & tooling costs have to be distributed over an excessively small number of cameras.

If their cameras were innovative, they'd be able to sell more of them, which would bring them economies of scale. These would not only be beneficial for Leica, but for the eintire community of Leica users.

 

[lxmike]

Over 35 years I have drifted from user to collector and back to user. I sarted my journey with two cameras in the late 1970[s in my teenage years a Olympus Trip 35, (the advert with david Bailey at a wedding influenced me), and a 126 Kodak x77 Instamatic. I was then given for Xmas 1981 a pentax MV, at this time I only wanted what I could use and then roll forward tens years and I had a collection and used to 'fondle' the cameras more than use them. Then a leaking roof and failed heating system forced the collection to be sold. Now I am back, full circle, armed with some knowledge of what I like I'm slowly building a collection that will remain small, only cameras that will get regular use are allowed in. I'm a big scale fouc fan hence I own a few rollei 35's, Minox etc. I can see and have experienced both side of the coin, collector and user

 

[Roger Hicks]

Roger, I wasn't aware that Rollei still exists. I'm actually thinking along the line with Keith: Leica still exists, but has stopped innovating a long time ago. The M9Ti isn't an innovation, but rather an artificially 'rarified' collector's item.

It's ok to collect for a customer, but it is a shame for a company to focus on reproducing the past instead of working on the future.

Leica makes a lot more 'user' cameras than 'collector', so I can't see how they're concentrating on collectors rather than users.

What innovations do you want to see? The S2 looked pretty good to me. So did the first ever full-frame digital rangefinder. Most of the things people ask for are personal preferences rather than actual improvements, e.g. opening back (I like the removable base). Others are difficult or impossible to get into the small, svelte M-body. For example, the parallax-compensated, frame-size-compensated finder of the Linhof Technika 70 is lovely but it's about the size of an M.

Cheers,

R.

 

[btgc]

Collection can be tool, almost same as a camera. When someone is interested in photography, [s-]he may not be aware of nuances, and thus quickly acquire lots of gear (which isn't collection by itself). Using many cameras and lenses, one can come to certain conclusions, what fits, what not.

Questions is what happens then - after arriving to dream kit, is rest of gear sold or just lays around home, distracting from using dedicated kit and sparkling new waves of acquisition?

 

[Arjay]

Leica makes a lot more 'user' cameras than 'collector', so I can't see how they're concentrating on collectors rather than users.

Hm - The steps between each of Leica's new models and its immediate predecessors have never been revolutionary but rather evolutionary. That's not how one lures away users from buying used cameras.

Admitted - Leica product quality is superb, and that in part also explains why used Leicas are competition to new ones.

I think Leica failed in its marketing, not so much in its technology: They just rested too long on their laurels. Why isn't there a serious, technologically attractive OVF camera line below the M series? Why did it take Fuji with its X100 announcement and its hybrid viewfinder to stir up Leica, and why isn't Leica working on concepts to strategically draw new generations of users to its product lines?

I love RF and OVF cameras as they're so much easier to use than SLRs, but I personally want to use a camera, and collecting is not my cup of tea. Currently, Leica has no offering for me, neither in terms of technology, nor in terms of economy.

 

[Spyro]

What worries me more is that there's a company out there that sees its business model more in catering to collectors than to keep an interesting camera system alive and affordable for those that actually use these things. Have they run out of R&D steam?

Who, Rollei?

Nah, I think he probably had sth else in mind 😛

 

[Mongo Park]

People collect all sorts of things and have always done so - and so, why not cameras and lenses. I consider myself a user of these objects but I do collect photographs - quite simply for the pleasure they bring (when I get the odd good one) and for the memories they spark. Have no beef against collectors of Leica gear - if you can afford it, why not.

 

[Doug]

...I have more issue with the companies that deliberately market items aimed at collectors than the collectors themselves. Buying a camera like the M9ti to stash away is about as hollow as buying a reproduction antique and no real collector with genuine interest in rare or exotic items would do so in my book. More likely it's fodder for some tosser with too much disposable income who wants bragging rights to compensate for no genuine taste or class!

I will agree with this, Keith... though some (or perhaps most) collectors study and enjoy the history and related stories regarding the specific items in their collections. They also preserve specimens that have some notable characteristic in the field.

I used to collect semi-auto pistols produced around the world, with sub-collections for certain types or calibers. This was a "black hole" to fall into, as the specimens got ever rarer, more expensive, and harder to acquire. Some categories, Lugers in particular, were so heavily infiltrated by fakes that even experts could often be taken in, one hazard of popularity and the money to be gained.

In regard to automobile collecting, I heard once that the best values were not so much the rare ones, but the cars that were recognized in their own times as outstanding and desirable. Restoration was much more acceptable for cars than for guns.

So it's always amazed me to see items made specifically for collecting, that have no useful value, like decorative display dinner plates and such. Some of these things are made in limited-edition numbered sets. No offense but I have a hard time seeing this as other than tacky and wasteful.

If we lump special-edition Leicas into this last, then I can see how they could be offensive. But in as far as the special Leica is truly functional, does it really fit there?

Further... Anything MADE to be collectible, in my view, therefore has little actual collector value anyway. A cutaway model would be more interesting for its educational aspect.

 

[Keith]

@ Brian: I'm not sure it does drive up prices. There aren't many collectors, as compared with users, and most of the cameras they want aren't the everyday 'cooking' Leicas that most of us use to take pictures. Besides, the ones that buy 'collector' editions that most of us aren't interested in anyway, especially the Titan, are buying NEW Leicas (not second-hand ones) and thereby helping to keep Leica in business, unlike those who buy second-had 'user' cameras.

@Keith: Of course you're right about the impossibility of resolving the question, but what puzzles me is why there's a question at all. I personally know only one person who has almost certainly bought a Titan, but he's certanly not bragging about it and he is extremely generous in allowing historians access to his collection. If you re-read your own post, doesn't it come close to sour grapes? "Someone else has more money than I, and they shouldn't have, but I am consoled by the fact that unlike me they have no taste or class."

Cheers,

R.

I have no class at all Roger and I don't have any money either ... so who am I to judge indeed!

 

[oftheherd]

I have bought a lot of cameras in the last few years due to RFF induced GAS. But not Leicas. They are more expensive than what I want to pay for a camera I wouldn't use much. I have cameras I do enjoy using. Leica just wouldn't be one of them. For all that want Leica for collecting or use, or both, good for you. I really don't care. I don't dislike Leica buyers and users, nor envy them. Nor do I care why they buy them.

Now if you want to talk about Super Press 23, that is a whole different story. 😀

 

[D.O'K.]

Were a given type of camera uniquely able to take better pictures than its rivals, and if hardly any examples of it had been made or existed, the "moral" argument against the collector depriving the photographer of it might be strong.

But in the real world is that ever the case? Either collectable camera X produces no better pictures than other types less collectable; or if it does, it will doubtless have been produced in sufficient quantities for the photographers to acquire one--if they really want one.

Equally I don't see how--again in the real world--collectors drive up prices. They don't usually want ordinary copies in "user" condition, leaving the photographer free to buy the latter, which will also be far more numerous than "collector" examples anyway, at the lower (non-collector) market rate.

If this is correct, there should be no reason for collectors and photographers to encroach on each other's territory at all, still less for the collectors to be resented.

I declare my interest however--like many here I suspect, I've a foot in each camp...

Regards,
D.

 

[Neare]

Roger, do you think that there is a difference in collecting cameras that were built to be collector models as opposed to collecting rare or expensive cameras for the sake of a collection?

I don't have a problem with Leica's current 'turned fashion accessory' direction, I think what most people are upset about is that they have not added the new features into a camera that your average Joe Blog can use.

But then that raises another issue with collecting. Collecting digital cameras now will be a far different issue to collecting film cameras. Why? Because a year later something better will come out. M9ti's are great now for the collector, but 10 years down the line they will seriously look at it as being obsolete. Whereas film cameras don't share that quality - cameras made 80 years ago take photographs the same as any new film camera made in the same format. Therefore it's is more of a collecting based on rarity and history rather than digital collecting which is based on prestige.

 

[MCTuomey]

People collect all sorts of things and have always done so - and so, why not cameras and lenses. I consider myself a user of these objects but I do collect photographs - quite simply for the pleasure they bring (when I get the odd good one) and for the memories they spark. Have no beef against collectors of Leica gear - if you can afford it, why not.

well put

no beef here. i kinda like the entertainment value of the "mine is best" threads that show up from time to time.

does buying more than one needs qualify as collecting? if so, then i have a large foot in the door myself.

 

[surfer dude]

Is that hello kitty camera for real? I want one!