On Sat, May 30, 2009 at 1:16 PM, Bob W <[email protected]> wrote: >> >> The Leica tax is not a myth. Even if you consider the capital >> expenditures a wash, a comparable 35mm SLR of similar vintage to an M4 >> will cost no more than $50 and is often available much cheaper than >> that. In other words buying the SLR will cost you less than shipping, >> fees and taxes on the Leica, which you won't recover when selling it. > > Well, there's obviously a geographical aspect to this because I can walk > into a shop, buy a Leica or an SLR, and pay no taxes, fees or shipping on > either, so those aspects are irrelevant. Otherwise I can buy & sell > privately, in which case those aspects don't feature at all. Buying & then > selling high quality old film cameras, whether they are SLRs or Leica Ms > involve essentially no financial loss, unless you want to start artifically > introducing shipping stuff for the Leica which may apply to your case but > certainly not to all.
Do you not pay VAT in the UK? I understand it's generally included in the list price unlike sales or VAT taxes in most North American jurisdictions which are not included in the list price but it is there nonetheless. And the vast majority of folk cannot buy such gear locally, such gear is really only available for local sale in the largest of cities in the western world and only widely available in a few of those. Private sales are of course another matter but shipping is generally a factor there as well since the primary venues for such are online fora such as RFF or APUG. Not to mention the fact that buying used at a retail location very rarely results in paying competitive prices for Leica bodies. Therefore your objections are almost entirely the exception rather than the rule, particular to your location in the London area and a few other locations. > >> Heck, my FX-3 cost me $5 out of pocket and $25 total (traded in a FR >> on it, payed $20 for the FR, got $20 trade-in value). Even a Nikon F >> can be had under $100. >> >> With very few exceptions, and nearly all of them fully-featured pro >> bodies, 35mm SLR's are available for the price of beer. >> > > Not in this country. I could get extremely very drunk several times over for > the price of a Nikon F. > > Bob > While F's with eyelevel prisms are rather ridiculously expensive and are among the exceptions I refer to, with Photomic heads they are tend to be very reasonably priced, often under $100 with an FT head, the T and FTn being a little more expensive but can be had in the two digit pricerange with a little care. -- M. Adam Maas http://www.mawz.ca Explorations of the City Around Us. -- 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.
