"You cannot inspect the camera, until after you've paid!"

[Mos6502]

Had a bizarre experience today with a very stupid person.

Every month the city hosts a "city-wide garage sale" where vendors come in and set up stalls, clothing, knick knacks, collectibles, etc. are on sale. There's a guy with a stall that has maybe two dozen old cameras on it. When I first come through he's talking with somebody, so after pausing for a moment to glance at what's on the table I continue walking (I like to do a quick sweep of all the stalls before going back the most interesting ones). After a time I return. He's talking with somebody again, so I start browsing the table. There's three or four interesting cameras on sale, so I do the usual thing pick them up, look them over, fire the shutter once or twice, then look through the lens and see if there's dust or mold. I do not open the cameras or remove the lenses, and I carefully place them back down on the table exactly as they are.

After I look at the first camera he asks if I have any questions. I tell him I'm just looking for the moment. So I've looked at three cameras, he has a really interesting VPK, pre-autographic, but no price marked. I move onto the fourth camera, it's a Mamiya DLT 1000, a run of the mill old camera, but it has a Pancolar 1.8 mounted on it. The lens is a bit yellowed, and it has some mold inside. The focus is stiff. When he sees me taking a good look at the lens, he says something to the other guy watching the stall. He comes over and says "What you're doing to these cameras, you're only allowed to do after you pay. I want you to leave". Really. I ask him how am I supposed to know what I'm paying for if I don't check basic functions and condition? He tells me "I see you looking at four different cameras, all these different brands, you looked at this one and this one - nobody collects different brands of camera!" I tell him, quite honestly, that I have over 100 cameras in my collection. Exaktas, Nikons, Leicas, why wouldn't somebody collect different brands? He tells me that I'm just a "tire kicker" and not interested in buying anything (I'm not sure how I've got 100+ cameras if I'm not interested in buying them). I tell him he's being an idiot, and lost a sale and walk away. I've looked at and bought cameras at the sale before, and never had anybody say anything so incredibly stupid to me before. I also don't think there's a camera shop in the world that would tell you that you cannot look at a camera before buying it.

I think he got mad because he saw somebody who knows what they're looking at, and didn't like that I was giving particular attention to a camera and lens that had several issues that would be obvious to anybody who knows what to look for, but wouldn't stand out to a casual buyer. Given no prices were marked on anything, I expect it is his plan to try and screw people over for as much as he can get away with. I don't think I've ever seen this guy at the local camera swap meets, but I do remember seeing his stall at the garage sale at a past event, which would fit in with that approach to sales. In fact the exchange makes me think that I've dealt with this guy before, as in the past I purchased a Canon LTM lens on ebay from a local seller. When It arrived it wouldn't focus correctly. I tried it on my Leica IIIF and on a Fed 3, and it wouldn't hit focus on either. I informed the seller of the problem and he got very defensive and hemmed and hawed about a return. After it was returned he blocked me on ebay. I feel that's the same brand of dishonesty and disrespect for a buyer, so I wouldn't be surprised if it's the same guy!

I think it'd be fun to return to the sale tomorrow with four or five different brands of camera around my neck.

 

[Tim Murphy]

Dear Mos6502,

He may be a seller but surely, he has been a buyer at one time otherwise how did he acquire the cameras he is selling?

Go back tomorrow with several cameras, ask him if he is interested in buying any of them. If he answers in the affirmative, hand him a bill and say please pay first.

Turnabout is fair play.

Regards,

Tim Murphy

Harrisburg PA 🙂

 

[Sonnar Brian]

Let him keep his junk.

I miss the local Ritz camera shop, the manager knew me. Asked if I would come in and meet one of the other customers that had just inherited a couple boxes of cameras. The manager asked me if I'd check them out and give advice to the young woman of what they were worth and how to sell them. Same shop that would get in stuff from the Warehouse, new-old-stock, and hold it back for me to have first shot at.

Sellers like the one you encountered- peddling junk thinking they are treasures.

 

[pvdhaar]

Don't bother, there's nothing to be gained.

 

[raydm6]

Sorry about the experience. He did you a favor.

 

[SWB]

I can maybe see the sellers point. I went to an auction viewing to look at a Leica IIIf and it was very beautiful, almost unused and decided to bid on it. You can guess what comes next. So I went back on the auction day and had a few minutes before the lot number came up so had another look at the camera, it was totally trashed, the shutter curtain was hanging out the front, the lens had been dropped.

There are a lot of levers and and buttons on old cameras and lots to go wrong, especially if what you think is supposed to happen doesn't, and that's when they get damaged. So it's a very well being an expert in your own mind but the seller doesn't know that and he's probably had cameras damaged by casual buyers in the past. There isn't such a thing as expert accreditation in cameras, so put another way, would you hand over something like a Leica IIIf or Zeiss folder to somebody who may know nothing about cameras so they could try and work out how it works? And conflating that as a bad experience with the one you had on eBay makes no sense at all. On eBay you can't test the lens or camera before buying it either, so what's supposed to be different in a retail setting? They are his rules, they are his cameras, so play his game or walk away.

 

[Mos6502]

I can maybe see the sellers point. I went to an auction viewing to look at a Leica IIIf and it was very beautiful, almost unused and decided to bid on it. You can guess what comes next. So I went back on the auction day and had a few minutes before the lot number came up so had another look at the camera, it was totally trashed, the shutter curtain was hanging out the front, the lens had been dropped.

There are a lot of levers and and buttons on old cameras and lots to go wrong, especially if what you think is supposed to happen doesn't, and that's when they get damaged. So it's a very well being an expert in your own mind but the seller doesn't know that and he's probably had cameras damaged by casual buyers in the past. There isn't such a thing as expert accreditation in cameras, so put another way, would you hand over something like a Leica IIIf or Zeiss folder to somebody who may know nothing about cameras so they could try and work out how it works? And conflating that as a bad experience with the one you had on eBay makes no sense at all. On eBay you can't test the lens or camera before buying it either, so what's supposed to be different in a retail setting? They are his rules, they are his cameras, so play his game or walk away.

Here's the thing, unless you're a complete idiot, you put those things in a case, or out of reach. I have many times attended the local camera swap meet as a vendor, and I expect that people will pick things up and look at them. If you have your stuff in an antique shop, you know people will pick things up and look at them. If you have a camera shop and put things out in the open on shelves, you know people will pick them up and look at them. If you do not want people to touch something, you keep it out of reach. If you put things in a heap on a table, in a venue where people all put things out in the open for people to look at, then you know what you're getting into. If that was his problem, he only has himself to blame (and if this was the case, why didn't he speak up immediately? And why would he tell me that the reason was that nobody collects all these different brands of camera?). I can see of no justification for such rude and stupid behavior from a seller. If the seller is too much of an idiot to figure out how a sale works, they probably shouldn't be attending. Period.

Indeed I should really go much further in my criticism. As a retail manager, I know that you may refuse service to any person, so long as your reason for doing so is legitimate, and said reasoning is applied to all potential buyers. So I ask you, is refusing to sell to a person, because he believes people don't collect different brands of cameras a legitimate reason to not sell? And could he apply that criteria equally to all prospective buyers? I don't believe so. As well, he did not have price tags on anything. Not only is this bad etiquette as a seller, it's an ethical problem (as well as a potential legal problem if he upsets the wrong person) since there is nothing stopping him from simply making up prices on a whim. Potentially even for bigoted reasons, he could simply name a ridiculous price to drive away somebody who in his eyes was the wrong gender, or color, or nationality, etc. In my state it is not against the law to not display prices - however if you give one price to one person, and change it for the next, you could end up in hot water for false advertising, price manipulation, or discrimination.

 

[Zuiko-logist]

Sorry about the experience. He did you a favor.

I agree with this. Life is too short .

 

[Ko.Fe.]

Collecting something old is not just an easy thing. I mean, eventually, situation like this comes as the part of the process.
If you won't collect, you won't have these problems.

 

[Mos6502]

Just a weird coincidence, confirmed today that this a-hole was indeed the person I purchased a lens from on ebay years ago, and who threw a fit because he sold me a defective lens and I asked for a return. He closed his original ebay shop. Reopened under a different name in the years since.

 

[TenEleven]

My experience with these kind of sellers (believe it or not there's even a shop here that proudly states on their website - we do not inspect our lenses with a flashlight") you just do best to avoid them. I've regrettably bought from these kind of folks, and every time basically there was some sort of hidden "gotcha", even if it looked fine in the shop.

I reckon they know what they're selling is junk and are preying on the gullible and desperate.

 

[rfaspen]

I can maybe see the sellers point. I went to an auction viewing to look at a Leica IIIf and it was very beautiful, almost unused and decided to bid on it. You can guess what comes next. So I went back on the auction day and had a few minutes before the lot number came up so had another look at the camera, it was totally trashed, the shutter curtain was hanging out the front, the lens had been dropped.

There are a lot of levers and and buttons on old cameras and lots to go wrong, especially if what you think is supposed to happen doesn't, and that's when they get damaged. So it's a very well being an expert in your own mind but the seller doesn't know that and he's probably had cameras damaged by casual buyers in the past. There isn't such a thing as expert accreditation in cameras, so put another way, would you hand over something like a Leica IIIf or Zeiss folder to somebody who may know nothing about cameras so they could try and work out how it works? And conflating that as a bad experience with the one you had on eBay makes no sense at all. On eBay you can't test the lens or camera before buying it either, so what's supposed to be different in a retail setting? They are his rules, they are his cameras, so play his game or walk away.

I can understand how "the public" can trash an old camera fast. It's happened before my eyes.

The solution is extremely simple. Place the cameras under glass (or out of reach somehow). Put clear label and pricing on/next to them (I hate it when people don't clearly price their stuff, even if it's negotiable). Interested folks can ask to handle, and you can be there to ensure they don't do something ham-fisted.

A guy in front of me at some market or other once insisted the wind knob on a Leica III was supposed to turn the opposite direction than the little arrow on top. "It just doesn't make sense to go that direction, I know how stuff works" as he brute force turned the knob the wrong way. I could hear the spring clutch inside breaking as he did it. After he broke it (now it really wasn't working) he put the camera down and announced it was damaged and not functioning properly! Um, yeah, now it's toast you idiot.