The fact is Nikon only made about 14,000 S3 cameras in the first run. They were unpopular then, I actually would have never considered buying an S3 to save something under $60 over the SP. It was a pointless (price point) camera. I know they sold many to the PX shops, I personally knew anyone but collectors who owned an S3 until the reissue.
Nikon then flooded the market with 10,000 plus more of them, and by the time they brought out the black model they almost doubled the number of cameras originally built.
But what about the cameras -- the reissue S3 and SP? In the late 1950s the SP was simply amazing to me, and I have owned a number of them, including motor driven ones. But in 2000 it was a truly inferior piece of equipment, the product of engineering egos gone wrong.
When Nikon built the SP they had a chance to build a rangefinder equal or even superior to the Leica, and include an electronic meter. Nikon had no parts or molds from the original SP, they had a clean slate, an opportunity to build a great SP, but instead they religiously copied a 40 year old design, which had already been eclipsed by the M3 finder when the SP was first released.
Just to add insult to injury Nikon proved they could improve the 50 1.4 and the 35 1.8, even as they made an inferior SP with a cloth shutter!
They could have built a collectible, worth more -- but they chose not to -- and the market spoke clearly, revaluing the camera bodies lower every year.
I owned two of the new S3, never used them, but kept right on using the far better S2 I have used since 1965.
