RexGig0
Offline
• • •
Upload & Sell: On
|
 p.3 #7 · Leica resale prices on M lenses bought new are no longer good these days! | |
stgrove wrote:
I am so disappointed in offers I am getting on original Mint (mounted once and used for 10-15 shots) Leica M lenses.
I sold all my Leica SL gear and thought the low pieces were due to the items being SL gear which were heavily competing with Nikon and Canon systems. Not just SL gear I know now.
Now I am finding that even Leica M lenses are not holding their value as we have been lead to believe by Leica for years.
I have been following Leica M lens prices since shortly before early 2018, when I started my Leica M shooting with a pre-owned Summilux-M 50mm ASPH, version 11891, which I found available at a local Leica dealer. Value retention has always varied, by lens, depending upon the equation of rarity and desirability. My 11891 held its value quite well, based upon asking and selling prices, until the ASPH II was rumored, and then announced. Suddenly, "everybody and his dog" wanted the ASPH II. It did not surprise me that asking prices of pre-owned 11891 lenses plummeted. So, did I fret, and kick myself? No, I bought myself a spare, "pre-II" Summilux-M 50 ASPH, though the chromed brass version, at the new, lowered, pre-owned asking price.  As I saw it, "I had started at the top," with my first M-mount lens*, and nothing had changed my mind, in that regard.
Don't I feel deprived, in not having a "Close Focus" Summilux-M 50mm ASPH II? Well, no, because I had bought my APO Summicron-M 75mm ASPH, pre-owned, of course, in early 2022, which had been a good time to buy that specific lens, pre-owned, as asking prices had been in decline, and, then, after I had bought my APO 75 M, asking prices had subsequently increased.
Importantly, one gets a better return on investment, by buying well-preserved pre-owned lenses. The first owner is the most likely to take the biggest financial hit,
I am not sure of the time frame, but several years ago, the asking prices of some Leica M lenses, overall, rose to seemingly insane levels, for a while. Anyone who paid those prices will be disappointed, if they try to move those lenses.
*I credit my first M-mount lens, the Summilux-M 50mm ASPH, with having saved me from quitting creative photography. in that sense, it is priceless. The final seven-plus years of my police career had included the added duty of forensic/evidentiary/crime scene photography, with emphasis on photographing family/domestic violence victims as soon as possible after the event. I bought my Summilux 50 ASPH and M10 less than three months after retiring from public service. (I had bought a Nikon D5 even earlier, as soon as I had retired, to photograph birds, because I had long loved to observe raptors, wading birds, and shorebirds, with high-end binoculars, but, I am not so sure that that I could have revived the desire to create, by snapping birds.)
|
