Only 6 M8's for sale on Ebay! What gives?

[eleskin]

I went on Ebay just for the hell of it to see how many M8's are listed. 6 was the number! WOW!!! I wonder why? I bought one as a second backup a few months ago ($2,350, mint) and I feel lucky I bought it when I did. Are people tired of high prices and see the M8 as a good deal? Are people discovering the M8 was not that bad after all and decided it was a better buy used than shelling out 7K for a new M9?

This should be interesting!

 

[jsrockit]

6 is a lot for an old niche camera no?

 

[rover]

Either people who have them like them.... or they are all broken.

 

[Pablito]

6 is a lot for an old niche camera no?

that is just what i thought.

 

[Ming Rider]

Are people tired of high prices and see the M8 as a good deal? Are people discovering the M8 was not that bad after all and decided it was a better buy used than shelling out 7K for a new M9

ALL OF THE ABOVE.

 

[deirdre]

And KEH currently has none for sale, and neither does Popflash.

A lot of people put buy-it-now prices on M8s, so they tend to be snapped up within an hour or two. I was waffling over one for about an hour (local purchase, even!), went back to buy it, but it was gone. Paid about $100 more at KEH, it should be here tomorrow.

Also, several of those prices on eBay seem, well, optimistic.

Without a lens, here's the completed auctions:

Min: $1870
Max: $3042
Mean: $2419

 

[Keith]

My theory is that the M8 will become a dwindling commodity quite quickly. As good as the camera is it's horribly expensive to repair when something relatively major calls it quits and depending where you live sending it off to Solms for repair would be a depressing prospect and could potentially match the price of a decent DSLR.

There seems to be several options for repairing the Epson at an acceptable price but that certainly won't be the case with the M8 IMO ... consequently a fair few of them are destined to become very attractive paper weights.

If you bought an M8 for between $2000.00 and $2500.00 and six months down the track it had a failure that was going to cost $1000.00 upwards to repair would you bother ... I don't think I would? The whole time I had my M8 this scenario was never far from my thoughts every time I used the camera ... Oz is a long way from anyone who can repair a digital M!

 

[shaunmlavery]

My theory is that the M8 will become a dwindling commodity quite quickly. As good as the camera is it's horribly expensive to repair when something relatively major calls it quits and depending where you live sending it off to Solms for repair would be a depressing prospect and could potentially match the price of a decent DSLR.

There seems to be several options for repairing the Epson at an acceptable price but that certainly won't be the case with the M8 IMO ... consequently a fair few of them are destined to become very attractive paper weights.

If you bought an M8 for between $2000.00 and $2500.00 and six months down the track it had a failure that was going to cost $1000.00 upwards to repair would you bother ... I don't think I would? The whole time I had my M8 this scenario was never far from my thoughts every time I used the camera ... Oz is a long way from anyone who can repair a digital M!

And this is why I have yet to pull the trigger, again, on the M8 for another go around. I just can't do it. Even when I find a good deal, my conscious won't let me commit to it.

 

[Keith]

The film M's have been in abundant supply for years and that shouldn't change. Even the worst dog you get lumbered with from eBay or anywhere else can be repaired relatively innexpensively and then it'll last you for eons. The same certainly can't be said for any digital product ... Leica or otherwise.

 

[deirdre]

If you bought an M8 for between $2000.00 and $2500.00 and six months down the track it had a failure that was going to cost $1000.00 upwards to repair would you bother ... I don't think I would? The whole time I had my M8 this scenario was never far from my thoughts every time I used the camera ... Oz is a long way from anyone who can repair a digital M!

The $2000 is a sunk cost at that point; if you spend $1000 on it, you can get more than that back when selling it (especially with a warranty on the repair); otherwise it's a doorstop. So yeah, I'd get it fixed no matter what I intended to do with it, so long as the expected repair cost did not exceed what I could get out of the camera.

There's nothing digital I could replace it with that's comparable for $1000, that's for sure.

 

[deirdre]

Oh, sure. Many people will choose not to buy something or not to repair something also based on sunk cost: it's the classic Sunk Cost dilemma.

There's the old econ rule: if the expected added benefits exceed the expected added costs, do it. If not, don't. Everyone will evaluate the costs and benefits differently.

Me, I'll enjoy my M8 while it works, and if it needs repair, I'll evaluate it based on expected costs at that time.

 

[kbg32]

There will be plenty of parts available for the M8 for years to come. I would bet that many of the electronics, other then the sensor from the M9, would fit the M8.

 

[Keith]

I think I started to get a little intimidated by location with my M8 ... if there was a facility here in Australia for repair I may have felt differently. I was using the camera semi professionally without having a backup body and that worried me ... logically to cover that situation a person would need three cameras IMO and the small volume of work I get certainly doesn't justify that.

I do miss it though!

 

[f16sunshine]

Baaah!
People just like the camera and are not selling as often. Hell there is always one here on the classified. I have 2 and don't worry about the break down. My 5Dii could break down and that would be an expensive repair also. Leica is not walking away from responsibility. The risk of a M8 shaped paperweight with no repair option is slim. These things are no more expensive to repair now than they were before the M9 arrived. Or am I wrong?

 

[deirdre]

Well, they're only more expensive to repair in the sense that they're all out of warranty now, right?

 

[eleskin]

I wonder when independent repair people can fix an M8 or any other digicam

I wonder when independent repair people can fix an M8 or any other digicam

It seems when the world went digital, the independent repair people have not filled the repair cost gap in many cases. Surely at some point, people other than leica will be able to fix an M8 or anything else. I could imagine in 10 years or so, there may be people out there that will use an M8 or M9 shell and place their own components in. Once you rip an M8 apart, it is not that complicated in camera terms, especially by the standards years from now.

 

[Keith]

It seems when the world went digital, the independent repair people have not filled the repair cost gap in many cases. Surely at some point, people other than leica will be able to fix an M8 or anything else. I could imagine in 10 years or so, there may be people out there that will use an M8 or M9 shell and place their own components in. Once you rip an M8 apart, it is not that complicated in camera terms, especially by the standards years from now.

That's all very well and sounds good to me ... but the M digital is very specific in it's design due to it's legacy IMO and people working on them will probably have to get certain parts from Leica because nothing else will fit.

Can you imagine Leice being very co-operative here? ... I can't?

 

[raid]

Use the M8 while you can. It will most likely fail eventually.

edit: [I mean within the next 15 years]

 

[ramosa]

Just 6? Well, I'm happy with mine and it's not for sale 😉

 

[MikeL]

I like watching people speculate with little data. Fun stuff!