On Dec 7, 2007, at 4:31 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: >> Those great old film cameras will likely be totally forgotten by >> 2015, never mind 2037. >> > Hmmm. What do you want to bet that my Leica IIIf RD won't be even > more coveted in 2037 than it is today? Worth more, adjusted for > inflation? Although I doubt I'll be around to collect. But just in > case, how about a vintage port, 2007?
I dunno Paul, but I'll make that wager. Let's make it a 2024 port ... according to my friends in the wine industry, ports start to go down after about 12-13 years. :-) Far as the folks dealing in vintage, collectible cameras have told me, the bottom has dropped out of the market with very few exceptions (like the occasional high-visibility fancy auction, like that Ur- Leica auction sale a few weeks ago). Collectibility value comes and goes in waves. Old Leica RF cameras, the II and III series, were so worthless in 1999 that my first Leica rangefinder cameras were a nicely used IIc and IIf, fitted with Elmar 3.5cm f/3.5 and Elmar 5.0cm f/3.5 lenses, which I bought complete from Olden Camera for about $99. "No one wants this old junk" is what the salesman told me. I did, at the time. I used them for about 17 years. Now people extol their beauty and excellence, toast them as if they were some kind of heady. Those two cameras were probably worth about 15x that about a decade ago. They were just decent cameras to me. Nice ones, they didn't break more than once or twice in the years I had them. They took good photos. Unfortunately, they didn't survive. Godfrey -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
