"No serial number" equipment

[Tom Diaz]

At the moment, ebay has a few GXR pieces listed. They all are Japanese sellers, and each says the piece has no serial number and no warranty. One says it is a vendor outlet unit or something like that.

I've never heard of a camera manufacturer selling "outlet" equipment with no serial numbers or warranties.

Can someone tell me what's up with this? Are these legitimate sellers and pieces of equipment? I have read that it is easy to remove GXR serial numbers....


Thanks,
Tom

 

[truefriendship]

Hi Tom,
Never heard or seen of this practice before - well, not in relation to cameras. I guess a manufacturer could do this to stop any form of warranty claim or repair. But it could equally be used to hide the identity of stolen equipment. 😱

If the seller has good feedback and you pay by palpal, (and the price reflects the risk), then go for it.

~Rif

 

[Nettar]

Tom, I bought a Samyang lens in Hong Kong once without a serial number. The official importer appeared to be very surprised that such lenses existed, but they did not seem to have the lens available and I could not find it in stock in the "regular" places, so I had few other options. I checked the lens very carefully, including looking at corner performance when it was mounted on my camera, and it seemed fine -- so I purchased it. It has not given me any trouble, and it is remarkably sharp, just as the reviews say it should be.

I suspect that these lenses come out of the factory through the back door. It is possible to buy genuine brand-name shirts, and other items, in Hong Kong that get there the same way, so I speculate it is the same in the case of lenses. Of course, the shirts, etc, originate in China, not Korea! Nettar

 

[Murchu]

Saw this too recently, when looking for a GXR (which I've subsequently bought closer to home). The serial number thing threw me too, and made me think twice. All I can personally think of, is that such units are likely refurbished, as have heard of manufacturers in the past removing serial numbers from repaired products, when the repairs ran to such an extent that the repaired product bore little resemblance after enough of the original parts were replaced to make it effectively quite dissimilar from how it originally left the factory.

This is all hypothesising on my part, and think I would have considered the above gxr items more carefully, had the link between the seller and Ricoh been clearer. I suppose also, by removing the serial number, the manufacturer was probably freeing itself of any warranty responsibilities, and such items were probably sold as-is.

The lack of a serial number does concern me though when I see it with any product, and my mind tends to wander to consider whether the serial was removed for nefarious reasons. Once again, a clearer link between the seller and the manufacturer would probably allay such concerns for me.

 

[YYV_146]

Since GXR modules are made in China (correct me if I'm wrong about this, I know the A12 is), I believe these might be from the backdoor. Factories often produce a bit extra and sell them off themselves for side profit. Considering the impracticality of a factory having its own camera outlet, shipping all the units to a foreign buyer seems like an obvious choice.

I'd say go for it if the seller has good feedback. You aren't hurting anybody's livelihood, since Ricoh doesn't supply the materials and certainly won't pay for extra units.

 

[Nettar]

Damien, I agree that it is worrying if the serial number was obviously removed for some reason. In the case of my Samyang lens, either the number was never there, or the part of the lens that bore the serial number was replaced. I tend to think it was not ever there, and that this is the case for at least some of the other items that are sold without a serial number. I'm with Victor in arguing that it is "common" (in my Hong Kong experience, the word "common" is appropriate) for factories in China to produce more than they were contracted to make, perhaps charge the contractee for all the material in all the items that they make, and sell the excess out the back door. Sometimes the excess items are passed to employees in lieu of wages. Nettar

 

[Murchu]

Damien, I agree that it is worrying if the serial number was obviously removed for some reason. In the case of my Samyang lens, either the number was never there, or the part of the lens that bore the serial number was replaced. I tend to think it was not ever there, and that this is the case for at least some of the other items that are sold without a serial number. I'm with Victor in arguing that it is "common" (in my Hong Kong experience, the word "common" is appropriate) for factories in China to produce more than they were contracted to make, perhaps charge the contractee for all the material in all the items that they make, and sell the excess out the back door. Sometimes the excess items are passed to employees in lieu of wages. Nettar

Thanks for the useful headsup, Nettar. I'm glad I passed on it now to be honest, and went for genuine UK stock model closer to home. With the GXR referred to in the OP, if its the one I saw, and I strongly suspect it is, the serial number was there originally, and subsequently removed with what looks like a sharp blade. Not sure if this is better or worse than no serial being there in the first place.

On a related note, I seem to remember that when Leica changed the top plate of an M, they rubbed out or erased the serial number on that new top plate, if I am remembering correctly. Obviously in a case like that, it is understandable, as the manufacturer does not want to give the impression the camera internals belong to a different serial number than they really do.

 

[GaryLH]

We had a thread about this w/ a gf670 over in the medium format section.. It was an eBay seller.. To make a long story short.. The way I remember it was ..

He was buying them from the repair facility as parts cameras and fixing them for resale. Someone had mentioned that the repair center removes the serial number on those camera bodies...

Btw, I have bought several factory refurb products in the past, they have all had the serial numbers.

Anyway.. If the factory never intends to warrantee the camera the. It would never put a serial number on it as in the case of selling a parts camera...

Gary