Thanks for everyones thoughts... I've been really busy at work and outside of that as well and had to take a break from the foruming.
I am somewhat surprised that nobody has experienced the same behavior on an M body - I mean, given the factors that could possibly contribute to this result, and of course the fact that it is possible (which I have learned that it is, of course) I would figure that this would be more common. I'll certainly be paying closer attention any time I'm ever mounting a body cap again. Obviously this should be an extremely rare scenario since a Leica without a lens is like a hooker without a <insert witty simile here>.
In fact, my M6 never made it to a technician since the seller offered me a full refund, so I will be shipping the camera back this week. Once I get my refund back I'll be on the hunt again, minus the $200 that it cost me to import the thing, unfortunately.
shutterflower said:
"I can't believe a seller would so obviously misrepresent an item."
. . .you aren't from these parts, are you?
Ebay - particularly the camera section - is a shady place. Buy from KEH or other dealer with a return policy - and with a record of being straight-up.
Of course, I bought a lens from someone overseas once - an actual retailer - and he said it was "as new in the box, spotless, MINT". It was very very not mint. It has actual chips in the body, small marks in the glass, coating issues, and dust between the elements.
Ok, concerning my comment re: misrepresenation I would like to clarify. It seems very strange to me that a seller who is willing to offer a full refund would place a blatent lie such as 'this camera has been used four times since i received it brand new as a gift - i am the original owner.' in their description of the item. They know that the person is eventually going to physically receive the item and inspect it visually and it will become quite apparent that the item was misrepresented, and that the buyer is going to be disappointed.
It's also worth noting that regardless of whether a seller offers any sort of warrenty or return policy, eBay and PayPal have a system in place to deal with significantly misrepresented items. So it should be in the best interest of any seller to describe their items at least somewhere in the ball park. If the item description had said - 'this camera shows average signs of use but is working well' that would have been much more realistic and probably not deter very many buyers. Likely only a collector, but a collector isn't going to bid on a used M6 without a box/papers anyway.
Also, in my experience, the online dealers (stores) are not much more trustworthy. Most of these places do not test or inspect used items very thoroughly and it makes sense because that would be a gigantic overhead. It always comes back to the same standard: cosmetics. Almost every item that's out there for sale right now has been 'rated' by the seller on cosmetics, purely. 'Buy this camera, it's MINT!' Meanwhile the focus is completely miscalibrated.
But anyway. My 35/2 is getting lonely. Hopefully she won't be in the drawer for too long.
