Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2001/06/23

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Subject: Re: [Leica] Black Hole? Now grey market
From: "Steve LeHuray" <icommag@toad.net>
Date: Sat, 23 Jun 2001 17:48:19 -0500

> Maybe I'm wrong but I seem to remember that not all that long ago,
> official Leica dealers,at least in the US, wouldn't be caught dead
> selling grey market Leica gear.  It would seem reasonable to expect that
> Leica USA would frown on any of their dealers peddling grey market along
> side the Passport stuff.  At some point ( maybe after Herr Cohn assumed
> the helm at Solms?) grey market started showing up everywhere.  Don
> Chatterton, Tamarkin, etc. all have grey as well as Passport.  This has
> to be with the consent of Leica  and may well have been seen as a
> strategy to boost flagging sales.  It simply makes it a buyers choice:
> save a few bucks and you pay for repairs or buy official and get the
> good warranty.  This change in policy has to have boosted sales overall.
>
> Mike Gardner
>

Yes. I have wondered about that, Leica dealers selling grey and passport,
but, I see some Nikon dealers, for example, also do that.

sl