[Leica] Re: Leica investment economics

[LRZeitlin <LRZeitlin@aol.com>]

There has been a lot of loose talk on the LUG about the investment value of
Leica cameras. At today's prices there are only two reasons for buying a new
Leica camera primarily as an investment, both of them irrational. Those
photographers who buy Leicas to actually use need read no further.

First, if you are a camera collector and/or a camera speculator you will buy
the camera and keep it unused in its original box, expecting that its price
will increase at some future date. This is a distinct possibility. An unsold
1954 M3 and Summicron lens with its original carton and shipping documents
which cost about $250 new would probably sell at a collector's auction for the
price of a small car, an unused urLeica would go for the price of a new house.

The price appreciation of most Leicas, however, is no better than the
equivalent amount of money deposited in bank CDs and considerably less than
funds invested in the stock market. That $250 cost of the Leica in 1954,
compounded at 6% per year would have grown to about $3250, about the price of
a new Leica kit. Invested in the stock market at the average annual rate of
return for those 44 years, it would have grown to $36,604, enough to buy a new
camera and a BMW to drive it around in. Buying Leicas soley for appreciation
is simply a variation of the "Greater Fool" theory beloved of stock
speculators. You may be a fool for paying so much but you hope there is always
a greater fool who will buy it from you for more.

Second, if you are one of those who have a "best quality" addiction, you will
buy the camera to fondle and possess, secure in the feeling that no one has or
appreciates quality equipment better than you. For a definition of "quality"
see Robert Pirsig's "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance." Don't bother
to take pictures with the camera. It is too expensive and valuable to risk.
Besides you may be annoyed by the fact that the resulting pictures are almost
indistinguishable from those taken with lesser cameras. 

So unless you are a camera speculator or a quality addict don't buy a Leica
for appreciation. Buy a mid-range Canon or Nikon, or even a (horrors!) Contax
G1 or G2. You will get state of the art engineering and manufacturing, fine
lenses, autofocus and autoexposure at a third to half the cost of an
equivalent Leica system. Invest the money you save to provide a real legacy
for your children. Remember that if the Indians who sold Niew Amsterdam to the
Dutch had invested the difference in price between a lesser system and a
Leica, they could not only buy back Manhattan but every bit of developed
property from Boston to Washington, DC.   -  LarryZ