What's a dead Leica meter worth?

[cosmonot]

So I was at the flea market today and a seller had a big box of old camera stuff on his table. There were a bunch of old Leica M/MR/whatever meters in pretty rough, not working shape. Looked like they had been in the box forever. Brassing, scratches, dents, etc. That didn't bother me; I'm looking for a dead meter or two for a project.

The guy wanted $25 each, because "They're LEICA meters! They're RARE!" Of course I know they're not rare, and he probably just wanted to make his table rent on a slow day, so I walked away.

So my question is: what is a fair value for a very dead Leica M meter, USER grade or lower?

 

[Steve Bellayr]

Old dead damaged Leica meter?...condition, condition, condition! If you are speaking of collectible value, which is what you are, then it is the condition of the item that is very important because if the item has any value it is for display.

 

[Steve Bellayr]

Let me add one more thing. I was at a Camera store and the owner had for sale an old Nikon rangefinder meter. I would have purchased it but it did not work. It was on consignment. He sent it back to the consigner. He did not feel it was worth the space in his shelf.

 

[gdi]

Since you can buy nice working ones for $25-60, I would think they are maybe worth $5...

 

[SolaresLarrave]

I think Don Goldberg has one for sale for $5.00.

Leica meters are, alas, not rare. Neither are they very resilient; they have to be treated with a lot of care. Maybe in the past they were some good choice to use with a Leica (which is, actually, their selling point), but now the M and MR meters are most likely in need of cleaning and readjustment (resucitation in the case of the M type).

The only ones relatively rare are the black ones. Even the non-working blacks sell for a nicer amount.

In short, asking $25.00 for a dead meter just because they're Leica is a bit of a ripoff. Moreso when they're not in good cosmetic shape.

 

[retro]

I've sold a few non-working Leica meters on eBay for around $10-$15

 

[Al Kaplan]

I'd guess that if you can locate a very clean looks-just-like-new meter it might be worth as much as $50 for somebody who wants to just have one on his pristine old M body to look pretty. It's not all that difficult to swap the working guts from an ugly meter with the dead guts if a pretty one. Quality Lightmetric can make your old meter work good as new. The MR and MR-4 meters are designed for the long defunct PX-13 and PX-625 mercury batteries, and would require some modification of the meter to use with currently available batteries.

 

[gdi]

I'd guess that if you can locate a very clean looks-just-like-new meter it might be worth as much as $50 for somebody who wants to just have one on his pristine old M body to look pretty. It's not all that difficult to swap the working guts from an ugly meter with the dead guts if a pretty one. Quality Lightmetric can make your old meter work good as new. The MR and MR-4 meters are designed for the long defunct PX-13 and PX-625 mercury batteries, and would require some modification of the meter to use with currently available batteries.

I use very cheap Air-Zinc hearing aid batteries in my MR-4 - you just have to pad them since they aren't the right size.

 

[cosmonot]

I'm not talking about pretty or "restorable" meters or anything like that. I'm not interested in paying anyone to replace the stock selenium cell or even doing it myself. I'm talking about a meter that is essentially good for parts and nothing else, because it's just the parts (housing, shutter speed coupling) that I'm interested in. Downright ugly is fine with me.

The $5 figure sounds reasonable. Now finding one at that price where shipping won't be insane (like just about every scammer on ebay, and sadly KEH.com as well...) might be a bit of a chore. I will likely follow up with DAG, I probably need some of his generic lens caps too. Thanks for the heads up.

 

[LChanyungco]

i have an old MC meter that came with a camera i bought awhile back... its missing the shoe mount and i dont think it works but you can have it if you pay for shipping...

 

[Paul C. Perkins MD]

No more than $10.00 for a chrome one. No idea what a black paint would go for.

Paul

 

[Joop van Heijgen]

I'd guess that if you can locate a very clean looks-just-like-new meter it might be worth as much as $50 for somebody who wants to just have one on his pristine old M body to look pretty. It's not all that difficult to swap the working guts from an ugly meter with the dead guts if a pretty one. Quality Lightmetric can make your old meter work good as new. The MR and MR-4 meters are designed for the long defunct PX-13 and PX-625 mercury batteries, and would require some modification of the meter to use with currently available batteries.

In helping my friend secure an MR-4 for his non-metered M's, I've gotten hold of several of them in working/accurate condition and discovered something interesting:

Checking the readings at the low, mid and high ends of the brightness range, I have found no variation between the following (voltages tested on a meter):

a new (never used) PX625 1.3V Mercury battery

a new PX625-A 1.5V Alkaline battery

a new MS76 1.55v Silver-Oxide battery in a CRIS MR9 1.3v adaptor

a new MS76 1.55v Silver-Oxide battery in a washer-spacer (left over from a Wein cell).

I did not have the same results when I tried this with a Leicaflex SL, M5 or CL, all of which required compensation with a 1.5v and then would still not read accurately at both ends of the brightness range.

Could it be that the MR-4, made by Metrawatt, has a built-in voltage regulator that nobody knows about? I'm reluctant to open these meters since I don't own them, and wouldn't know what I was looking at if I did. Just curious if anybody else has checked an MR4 with different battery types and found the same thing. I don't mean the readings are close, they're *identical*. BTW for using the MR9 adaptor I would recommend a 386 vs an MS76 because the latter is thicker and pushes the battery door open a little--and those battery doors don't look like they're too strong.

http://www.l-camera-forum.com/leica-...s/2/50437.html

 

[sanmich]

25$ is a fair price...
...for the lot