KEH prices INSANE now

I feel completely indifferent to these price increases. I have been trying to sell some stuff for months now and no one is even asking to lower the price. I'm talking about cameras and lenses, digital and analogue.

I assume that KEH might be sensing their own demise, along with other camera retailers and they're making hay while the sun shines. Other than there is no rational reason for these price increases.


Don't take my word for it, put up your stuff for sale and see how much interest there is...
 
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GSNfan said:
I feel completely indifferent to these price increases. I have been trying to sell some stuff for months now and no one is even asking to lower the price. I'm talking about cameras and lenses, digital and analogue.

The assume that KEH might be sensing their own demise, along with other camera retailers and they're making hay while the sun shines. Other than there is no rational reason for these price increases.


Don't take my word for it, put up your stuff for sale and see how much interest there is...
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Stuff will sell if you know who wants to buy it. I recently sold some stuff here that was very well priced. It sold almost instantly. It was a RFF "friendly" (mamiya 7) item. I had another item which was not RFF friendly (Pentax) and did not have a whiff of interest. Put that item in its appropriate market- pentaxforums- it was gone in a day. Keep in mind I price my stuff a slightly below market because I want it gone.
 
Roger Hicks said:
Modern pennies are not solid copper.

In reality, of course, 240 silver pence weigh a pound.

Cheers,

R.
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That is true: modern pennies are not pure copper and pennies that are currently minted over the past few years have even less copper. I have to check the dates, but I believe it was 1943 that war shortages caused pennies to be made of zinc and they were silver in color.

Silver dollars were 95% silver before 1965 and were alloyed with zinc to make them a harder alloy. Sterling silver is only 90% silver BTW. Brass is only 90% copper alloyed with tin and zinc.

I have to check my facts, but it is my understanding that 154 pennies does in fact give you a pound of copper and the weight of those 154 pennies is a bit more than a pound.

Not only has the U.S. government recently dilueted the amount of copper in a penny because of costs and comodity prices, also they have already passed laws to make it illegal to transport large amounts of pennies overseas to prevent vast amounts from being melted down for big profit. At the time, two years ago, when those laws were passed, it prevented easily more than doubling your money.

Cal
 
ishpop said:
in the late 90s/early 2000s, as a vinyl collector and DJ, I would make frequent trips to a handfull of record shops in Pittsburgh. It's not as though Pittsburgh is any more of a vinyl mecca than any other midwest city, but we did have one spot, Jerry's, which had a reputation in the vinyl collector world.

Anyways, over the course of a couple of years, we started noticing a lot of Japanese guys coming to the store. Nothing too out of the ordinary, but they were from Japan, and seemed to have come to Pittsburgh just to visit Jerry's. Pittsburgh is a great town, don;t get me wrong, but not a lot of tourists from Japan are flocking to the steel city! haha.

But what made it even more interesting was what they would walk out of Jerry's with. On many occasions there would be 4-5 japanese guys hauling boxes and boxes of records into a van. I'm talking about 10-15 boxes.

Long story short, Japan had at that time insanely high prices on most 60s/70s/80s collectible vinyl. Genres such as Disco, Hip Hop, Soul, Funk, all were being sold in Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto, etc..., for anywhere from 10x to 100x the price. After a while we started noticing we simply were not finding gems in the bins at Jerry's. The fun in going to a record store as huge as Jerry's is that you would spend 3-4 hours diggin and walk out with 3-4 rarities, cool finds, all for $4.00. But no joke, they were cleaned out!
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Funny, that's exactly how I spent my day yesterday, but at my secret spot! Three hours later and $6.37 lighter, I am a happy man, love a good dig!
 
The facts: a U.S penny minted between 1909-1982 is 95% copper and 5% zinc. The melt value on 14 April 2011 was 0.0281057 not including any value for the zinc. As a commodity these pennies are almost worth triple their monitary value in copper alone.

Exclusion is pennies minted in 1943 that were made of zinc due to war shortages.

Pennies after 1982 now have less copper.

Cal
 
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The real insanity is sending a Leica RF to KEH and they offer you a mere pittens for it, and this is not a bgn grade camera. I think there is some gouging going on but then again, what do I know?
 
KEH did a massive clear-out of BGN equipment in "as-is" not long ago. the prices were dirt cheap. I suspect they kept the better ones out of the huge sell-off, and prices are at a premium for these picks.

As for selling stuff- most of the items that I put up were gone in minutes. Most of the items in RFF classifieds tend to be well-priced, and sometimes it is a shock to see what the items sell for on Ebay and stores. But- these places have higher overhead, and need to make a living.
 
pixelatedscraps said:
Anyone else noticed this? Prices in brackets are the prices I recorded in December, when I last bought anything:

Nikon FM2N 'BGN' = $199 ($119)

Nikon FE2 'BGN' = $179 ($89)

Leica M2 'BGN' = $959 ($751)

It was bound to happen but where are the bargains now? Or does this mean there are no bargains anymore? Cos my salary sure as hell hasn't increased by 40% in the last 3 months.
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Film is coming back.
 
On the value of the dollar- my 17.3" laptop with 500GByte drive, dual-core 2.5GHz processor, 4GByte RAM from HP was less than the 5.25" floppy drive with a pack of "Elephant Disks" for my first home computer, in 1981. The value of the dollar is not driving prices of vintage gear these days. It's probably the introduction of new equipment with backwards compatibility and the owners of the new equipment wanting to give legacy equipment a try. I get more comments about my vintage camera gear from college age young adults than anyone else.
 
Brian Sweeney said:
I get more comments about my vintage camera gear from college age young adults than anyone else.
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It's funny how that works. My Leica IIIf gets the comments from college age women who are into photography. My F2 gets even more comments, but almost exclusively from college age men. On the occasion someone realizes that the Crown Graphic really _is_ a camera they're usually older film burners already.
 
cliffpov said:
The real insanity is sending a Leica RF to KEH and they offer you a mere pittens for it, and this is not a bgn grade camera. I think there is some gouging going on but then again, what do I know?
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Ain't it the truth!

ssmc said:
I also noticed that the supply of, for example (since these are what I keep an eye on) Leica M bodies & lenses, and Minolta MC/MD lenses seems to have dried up in the last few months
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I requested a quote for two Minolta lenses (35/45) and a X-700 body as well as a Bessa R3M and 50mm f2 Heliar from KEH the other day. All the equipment conservatively speaking is in E+ condition using their own grading standards.

Both of the cameras were purchased from them within the past 6 mos. I had also included two NIB Mamiya RZ 120 film backs.

I almost fell over laughing when I received their quote. KEH was offering me LESS than what it would cost me to BUY a BGN R3M body from them - AND for EVERYTHING I had listed!!!

What's wrong with this picture 🙁 ?
 
I picked up a Tanack IV with 5cm F2 Tanar, beautiful condition- for about $230 at the last camera show that I went to in February. Prices at the show were quite good. The lens is "uncommon", a late black version of the lens.
 
Brian Sweeney said:
I picked up a Tanack IV with 5cm F2 Tanar, beautiful condition- for about $230 at the last camera show that I went to in February. Prices at the show were quite good. The lens is "uncommon", a late black version of the lens.
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Good find. I have the black version too and it's everybit as good as my Nikon 50/2 LTM.

As for selling, sold two items this week. One was V2 R 28mm Elmarit someone asked if I was still interested in selling. The other was the Nokton 25/.95.
 
Is it possibly as simple as:

1) KEH sells camera gear for the maximum amount they can considering the selling price determined by an open free-market economy?
2) KEH buys camera gear for the minimum they have to pay considering the buying price determined by an open market economy?

Would anyone owning a for-profit business do otherwise?

Is this a bit like saying "NASDAQ is trying to rip us off, they want $547 for one share to Google stock. They wanted less than $450 for a share ten months ago"
 
Hipsters are shooting film.....


I think they may be low on inventory because they've been bombarding my inbox with reminders for all the camera shows they are going be buying at.

I buy and sell enough cameras that I probably qualify as a small time dealer and it's been rough lately and very inconsistent as well. I've had things I was selling well below market that don't get touched on week and they next week I could sell 3 at twice the price.
 
Checking KEH's site there doesn't seem to be one OM film body listed ... zilch!

Or am I just not searching properly?
 
dave lackey said:
No gold ones, but 27 of them here:🙂

http://www.keh.com/Camera/format-35...a-Bodies?s=1&bcode=OM&ccode=2&cc=79321&r=WG&f
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Well that's strange ... the first couple of searches I did brought up zero stock! I just tried again and it's back to normal.

The trouble with all this discussing prices based around what we see at KEH is that we get a myopic view of values IMO.

Mind you there is an OM-2 for sale on Oz eBay for $245.00 at the moment ... good luck to them with that price! 🙄
 
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