Truth in Classifieds

[kshapero]

It amazes me that no one ever sells a camera in the RFF classifieds that has ever been used with more than 4 or 5 rolls of film?😱 So who is doing all the shooting around here?😕😕 it just kind of cracks me up.😀

 

[dazedgonebye]

Apparently, you've never seen one of my sales.

I recently sold the world's ugliest Koni-Omega. I think it had a few thousand rolls through it and had been used for years as a weapon on the cage wrestling circuit.

 

[Al Kaplan]

I think that we probably all gave honest descriptions on the recent threads giving-away-for-the-cost-of-shipping! I joke so much about the cosmetic condition of my 35 to 50 year old M bodies, but they work and I still use them. My Minolta Autocord, which came in a box of "junk cameras", would be difficult to describe. It's the original model with a light meter, a selenium cell contraption mounted just below the hood, but a previous owner had removed it. It looks like it was pryed off with a screwdriver, but everything else works just fine, and the lens is clean.

 

[kshapero]

Apparently, you've never seen one of my sales.

I recently sold the world's ugliest Koni-Omega. I think it had a few thousand rolls through it and had been used for years as a weapon on the cage wrestling circuit.

Now you are talking.🙂

 

[Fred Burton]

Minty is the word. Minty. 🙂

 

[JRG]

Well, it is an interesting phenomenon. On the other hand, I've recently sold here a Leica M6 0.85 and a Leica MP 0.85. The latter was new, period; the former was so close to new that I had to struggle to find any sign of prior usage. (So did the buyer, who has already posted to that effect, in another thread.)

So, just possibly, some of those descriptions are accurate. Over the past year or so, I've bought three M-mount bodies and four M-mount lenses here. I'd say the description of each was accurate, if not perhaps a bit on the conservative side. (That would include a 90 Apo-Lanthar bought from the OP of this thread; his description was dead accurate, and the lens was a good buy, despite his clear description of its cosmetic faults.)

 

[dazedgonebye]

I try to be conservative in my descriptions as well.
I'm not picky about my gear. If it works, I could care a rat's a$$ about looks. I am aware though that many here take pride in appearance. I fear selling something with a cosmetic problem that I failed to reveal...so I think generally, my stuff is better than I say it is.

 

[Rayt]

I once got a new camera I didn't need or want as part of a trade and never used it. When I put it up for sale I wrote less than 30 rolls even though it was never used because no one would believe it otherwise.

 

[kshapero]

Well, it is an interesting phenomenon. On the other hand, I've recently sold here a Leica M6 0.85 and a Leica MP 0.85. The latter was new, period; the former was so close to new that I had to struggle to find any sign of prior usage. (So did the buyer, who has already posted to that effect, in another thread.)

So, just possibly, some of those descriptions are accurate. Over the past year or so, I've bought three M-mount bodies and four M-mount lenses here. I'd say the description of each was accurate, if not perhaps a bit on the conservative side. (That would include a 90 Apo-Lanthar bought from the OP of this thread; his description was dead accurate, and the lens was a good buy, despite his clear description of its cosmetic faults.)

Of course many are very accurate but can every minty have had only 3 or 4 rolls run through it. I take that phrase to mean "Mint". or "excellent" shape.

 

[blw]

I think another way to look at this is that if someone has a camera they're putting hundreds of rolls of film through, maybe...just maybe, they're not selling it. I'd certainly be more willing to sell a camera I'm not using than one I use almost daily.

All that said....as someone who has yet to come up with funds for a rangefinder of higher quality (read: a Leica or any other of that ilk) than a Kiev or Yashica GSN, I find myself consistently amazed that someone would have an MP, M6, etc and not shoot any film in it- I don't care how new it is.

But then I'm one of those weirdos that believes tools are supposed to be used rather than admired.

 

[JRG]

"Of course many are very accurate but can every minty have had only 3 or 4 rolls run through it. I take that phrase to mean "Mint". or "excellent" shape."

Well, in my case, it's just that I see no point in putting marks on a brand-new camera that cost me $x if I can find an already-loved version of that same camera for $0.5x or $0.75x. The already-used one works just as well, and I can put the extra cash into lenses.

And that's pretty much what I've been doing. The MP that I sold came from the stock of a dealer going out of business, the M6 0.85 from a Classified ad here on RFF; the latter proved to be essentially flawless when it arrived. I couldn't see dragging either of those out into the real world --- not when I could trade them for less-than-perfect examples and spend the extra money on lenses.

Maybe there are others who see things this way?

 

[kuzano]

Sometime, do a blank search on eBay....

Sometime, do a blank search on eBay....

Minty is the word. Minty. 🙂

Search the words, minty, mint, rare, and vintage, by themselves. The word mint often yields 300,000 hits. The others likewise. And it's for sure that there are more "minty" items on eBay than throughout the world otherwise.

I have considered selling my Fuji GA645Zi here. It has 32,400 actuations on the shutter and an unusual hairline, odd shaped crack about half an inch long on the back that I have seen on almost every GA645Zi I have encountered, including 3-4 roll examples.

It just came back from a service and new LCD with Frank Marshman at CameraWiz, but I'm thinking the shutter count will kill it's real value. It's such a versatile medium format and delivers excellent results, so am thinking I won't be happy selling it for what I can get with the count and the crack (cosmetic only)

Perhaps that's why you don't often see the high count cameras. We just don't think there will be interest in a proven, veteran camera that's been exercised properly.

 

[JRG]

"But then I'm one of those weirdos that believes tools are supposed to be used rather than admired."

No argument with that. But if someone else wants to admire it for $x, I'll trade for a less-pristine example at $0.5x, and have $0.5x to spend on lenses.

 

[sanmich]

Just for fun, from a ebay description of a lens:

"This lens was not optically abused"

I felt very amused...

 

[cmogi10]

If I ever sell any of the gear that I use you'll be able to tell it was used a whole lot.
Lenses worn, bodies worn. That's when you know they work.

 

[kdemas]

It is true, the buzz words can get kind of humorous. I bought a "mint" Nikon RF lens that was more like "Bargain" when it showed up so you never know.

On the other side of the equation there are some people, like me, who have popped up a fair number of ads with lines like "less than 5 rolls through it". Why, you might ask?

In short, a case of GAS that had way too many cameras floating in the door compared to the shooting that was going on. That and the prevalence of digital and the lure of instant gratification rending film shooting rates near zero for the last few years (for me).

So in short, some of those "little used" ads are form people like me who lost their mind and bought too much equipment 🙂

Kent

ps- Actually, can you ever have too much camera gear? What a great hobby 🙂

 

[Al Kaplan]

Sometimes I wonder if listing a camera's life story as a hard working tool would appeal to buyers. Things like who owned it in the past, what events and famous people it photographed, where and when it had travelled. I could give a pretty good narrative about my button rewind M2 since I purchased it fourth hand in 1972 when it was only fourteen years old, and I know some of the major events the previous two owners shot with it. For a fifty year old camera it's in pretty damned good shape.