Did I make a mistake?

[lmd91343]

I was at a camera show here in L.A. today. I saw an M3 DS with an asking price of $350. The dealer would have taken $290.

The slow speeds seemed a little slow. The RF image was very dim (my un-cleaned FED 2 is brighter). There were three small scrapes and dents on the top cover at the edges. The vulcanite was chipped and broken. The second curtain looked ugly. All of what I thought was chrome looked like a hammer tone finish, like the surface on a galvanized bucket.

The surface under the wind lever looked like beautiful satin chrome. Everything else looked horrible. The corrosion(?) would not yield under my fingernail. It is not water soluble. He said it was stored for several years in a sealed plastic bag.

He said that 35mm frame lines where added by Leitz. Is that possible? I thought the M2s came that way. Neither of us had a 35mm lens.

The owner/dealer kept insisting that I could have brought up to Leitz standards for $225 in N.Y.C. by Leitz.

I passed on the camera. Did I make a mistake?

What made it look even worse in comparison was a perfect, mint Canon 7 marked as "Bell & Howell" for $350!

Thanks,

 

[ray_g]

FWIW, I'd have passed on it, too.

 

[Fedzilla_Bob]

Sounds like it took a dunk. "kept in a plastic bag" sounds like what someone had done to save it for restoration, but gave up.

 

[waileong]

No way

No way

Would you have been happy if the camera was sold to you at $515 (ie $290 + 225) in that condition, even if the RF was bright and the speeds were correct?

For $700-800, ie $200-300 more you could have a much prettier body in good mechanical condition. What's $200? The cost of a night's hotel stay in New York?

My suggestion is to pass on the really ugly bodies, unless you want to take them to a war zone or something. Even if it's mechanically perfect, it is always painful to look at them.

Wai Leong
===

I was at a camera show here in L.A. today. I saw an M3 DS with an asking price of $350. The dealer would have taken $290.

The slow speeds seemed a little slow. The RF image was very dim (my un-cleaned FED 2 is brighter). There were three small scrapes and dents on the top cover at the edges. The vulcanite was chipped and broken. The second curtain looked ugly. All of what I thought was chrome looked like a hammer tone finish, like the surface on a galvanized bucket.

The surface under the wind lever looked like beautiful satin chrome. Everything else looked horrible. The corrosion(?) would not yield under my fingernail. It is not water soluble. He said it was stored for several years in a sealed plastic bag.

He said that 35mm frame lines where added by Leitz. Is that possible? I thought the M2s came that way. Neither of us had a 35mm lens.

The owner/dealer kept insisting that I could have brought up to Leitz standards for $225 in N.Y.C. by Leitz.

I passed on the camera. Did I make a mistake?

What made it look even worse in comparison was a perfect, mint Canon 7 marked as "Bell & Howell" for $350!

Thanks,

 

[back alley]

at best, it sounds like more trouble than it was worth.

 

[jlw]

You didn't make a mistake if you wanted a safe, usable buy.

At $290 I wouldn't have worried about the "hammertone" finish (ugly M3s have a certain macho charm; you can always make up a romantic war story to explain them) but the dim RF image is more problematic. It might be that the RF just needs a good cleaning... or it also might be that the beamsplitter prism is separating. This is expensive to fix.

Whenever a dealer tells me that I can buy his camera for $X and then spend $Y to have it fixed up, I always wonder why HE didn't just spend the $Y so he could sell it for more money? I usually suspect that there's some good but undisclosed reason why he didn't.

So, buying that Leica might have been a good play for a well-heeled risk-taker. But it was also a good play to walk out of the show with your money still in your pocket!

 

[doubs43]

The owner/dealer kept insisting that I could have brought up to Leitz standards for $225 in N.Y.C. by Leitz.

I passed on the camera. Did I make a mistake?

IMO, you didn't make a mistake. If bringing it up to snuff was so easy and cheap, why didn't HE have it done and then sell it for a lot more than that? I'm not up on M-Leica repair prices but it wouldn't surprise me if the total almost tripled his "estimate". New shutter curtains, range finder parts & repair, new body covering and CLA wouldn't come cheaply and certainly NOT for $225.

I'd be reluctant to buy anything from someone who misrepresented something that badly.

Walker

 

[Wayne R. Scott]

I was always told that if something needs fixed or fed, don't buy it!

Wayne

 

[Doug]

IMO, you didn't make a mistake. If bringing it up to snuff was so easy and cheap, why didn't HE have it done and then sell it for a lot more than that?

Exactly right, I think... If it's uneconomical for the seller to repair, then at the price asked it's uneconomical for the buyer. There's a bit of gamble that the repair will turn out to be easier and less costly than it looks, especially if you figure you could do the job yourself.

 

[lmd91343]

Thank you!

Thank you!

Thank you all!

I feel better about not getting that M3. A Leica M is beyond my ability to fix. I'll work on a FED or Spotmatic, but not an M. It would cost too much to clean up and fix.

Now the only thing I feel bad about is not getting that PERFECT Canon 7!

 

[Kim Coxon]

That could have been a mistake!

Kim

Now the only thing I feel bad about is not getting that PERFECT Canon 7!