Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2003/08/08

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Subject: [Leica] Leica economics
From: LRZeitlin@aol.com
Date: Fri, 8 Aug 2003 14:31:28 EDT

Mark writes:

<<As I've called it before I still see it that way. Playing with money.
Put that money in camera form for a while. Then another camera system.
Then a collection of nice pens. Then back to money again as the stock
market gets more interesting. "Leica futures are doing very well I'll
take an MP and some porkbellies">>

Mark,

I agree with your disdain for Leica speculators.

Just how good is 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. 

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. A new unsold 
1954 M3 with its original carton and shipping documents which sold for about 
$250 new in a tax free airport shop 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, it would 
have grown to $36,604, enough to by 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 their $24 properly they could not only buy back Manhattan but every bit 
of developed property from Boston to Washington, DC.   

Larry Z
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