> > 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. > 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 -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
