Nikon Auction

[nikkortorokkor]

This one sure has got the boys & girls excited down here.

The vendor seems genuinely ignorant of what he has, which in of itself is a good sales ploy!

be interesting to see how high it goes.

Disclaimer: I'm not the vendor or related to the vendor, etc. etc. Just thought you might all be as interested as I am, though perhaps not as broke

www.trademe.co.nz/Electronics-photography/Film-cameras/Vintage/auction-132297481.htm

oh, action is in $NZ.

[PeterW]

At the moment it's at $666 NZ. That's a little under £250 GBP. What's the going rate for Nikon rangefinders in New Zealand?

There's one on ebay UK at the moment with a 30 day guarantee from a dealer with a Buy It Now price of £595, roughly $1,587 NZ, but with only the standard f/2 lens

PeterW

[nikonbob]

Very nice Nikon RF but I don't think the price will stay at it's present level as the time to run is too long and there is a lot of early interest. I am not up on Nikon RFs but I think this is an S3 and rarer than the S2 which was the most produced model. It will be interesting to see where it goes.

Bob

[John Farrell]

The price is too high for me on this. I remember when a Wrayflex was auctioned in 2003 - I led the bidding for about 20 minutes after it listed, but I knew my $170 wouldn't be enough.

The most unlikely people are ignorant about cameras. A camera dealer sold a Canon rangefinder on Trademe last week. He claimed it was an odd variant of the Canon III, with flash synch. If he'd checked his copy of McKeown's, he would have seen it was a IVSB.

[kiev4a]

The only trouble with the Canon RFs is that all the earlier models had that weird rail for attaching a flash or special sync cord and no one makes 'em anymore.

[nikkortorokkor]

the camera reached NZ$1610, which I'm sure was a nice christmas gift for its vendor.

[nikonbob]

If it goes at that price the seller will have a nice Christmas gift and the buyer might have got a good deal too, if nothing is wrong with the kit.

Bob

[bcomber2]

It seems enough that these cameras are available here in NZ! The deal seems to be a good one with 2 lenses 50mm f2 and 13.5 cm telephoto, lenscaps and hoods, bag etc. Wondered what they would go for individually and had a look at a couple of sites and darn, everything Nikon RF seems to be almost as expensive as Leica. Perhaps $1610 is a good deal for the buyer!
Dave

[nikonbob]

Dave

I was thinking the same thing.

Bob

[nikkortorokkor]

In general, anntique prices in NZ tend to be 'soft', despite the fact that as 'the last bus stop before Antarctica' we have a smallish pool of articles to be sold. Counteracting the small pool of goods is a small potential market of 4 million inhabitants.

I saw this in action when I had a close friend in the antique trade. When his employee, a camera fan, would start quoting McKeown's, my friend would reply "I'm not interested in what it's worth in America, I want to know what a customer will pay for it in my store today". Usually the latter was quite a lot less than the former!

None of which means that anomolies don't occur. For me, the most difficult thing is picking up genuine Rokkor glass. The majority of local Minolta 'kits' show up with the standard 50 and a couple of 3rd market zooms. Anyone looking to quickly build even a modest kit of genuine (manual) lenses (other than Nikkor, Canon, and to a much lesser extent, Zuiko) would probably find it worthwhile to look offshore.

Still, I too agree that the Nikon was a very good buy for anyone not in my impoverished student with a mortgage situ. ;D

[John Farrell]

An interesting illustration of this.....I bought a Diax IIb from a antique shop for $35 (New Zealand). The dealer was bemoaning the drop in antique camera values, and said that a couple of years ago he could have got $85 for the camera. McKeown's 2001-2002 lists the Diax IIb at US$150, with a Schneider Xenar.

[nikonbob]

It might be a good opportunity to entrepreneurial and buy in NZ then resell on the big net site US edition. But then again would it be worth the hassle?

Bob

[bcomber2]

Bob,
No doubt someone is doing this. Sometimes a comment is made that 'if my camera won't sell on TM then it will go o'seas' . others say no overseas buyers, i.e. can't be bothered with the hassles. I often suspect that there are importers via #bay for reselling. No proof however.

[nikkortorokkor]

one very knowledgable vendor that I sometimes buy from does export and import to & from the US. He notes that it is much more viable to import from the US rather than the UK because shipping from the US is much more reasonable.

As for exporting, he finds the real money earners are what might be called ephemera associated with Leica & Nikon. The prices he got on the bay for Nikkor lens and accessory boxes (thats right, cardboard cartons) would make your eyes water. I think that this illustrates the potential and pitfalls of making a living from antique photography equipment. Knowing that the boxes that he bought for pennies would bring dollars in te US (but not in NZ) allowed him to make a handsome profit, probably much greater, percentage-wise, than actual cameras would!

I think that with world prices being what they are, and the really highly valued gear being quite rare here, unless you're a well setup specialist like the vendor mentioned above who already has a large stock/collection (his garage is an Aladin's cave) it would not, as Bob suggests, be wrth the hassle.

[nikonbob]

Micheal

You make a good point about not over looking the ephemera associated with those two makers. For the ardent collector the easily perishable/thrown out items in good condition are hard to come by. Fortunately I am not that badly bitten by the collecting bug that I need to purchase empty boxes.

Bob