Unique Photo Trade-In values suck

[blockend]

The safest position is to assume the camera you buy will be worth nothing when you come sell it. Buy it for life, pay for repairs when needed, and you'll never be disappointed. Of course this cosy picture falls apart with d*g*t*l photography.

Unless you're a professional writing equipment off against tax, new cameras are lose squared. There are sufficient numbers of "enthusiasts" prepared to pay inflated launch prices just so they can go on forums and brag/complain. The price they paid will be lowered by manufacturers in as little as six months, sometimes less, so if they expect any kind of return on their "investment", they better dispose of their "asset" pretty quickly. By the end of the product cycle a camera will be for sale, new and warrantied, at a considerably lower price than those advertised secondhand. Who'd be a bricks and mortar used camera retailer with that pricing model?

The reality is someone could trade perfectly good 1970s-1990s SLRs all day long, and barely make enough money to keep the lights on. The usefulness of a camera as photographic tool, its condition and value to an individual, has no bearing on its market price. With cameras as with most things, never mix business and sentiment.

 

[Old-N-Feeble]

trade in values everywhere stink.
its like anything else
sometimes there are places
that will give you a little more
and some places give you a little less
and evay is a crap=shoot and classifides sections
are filled with bottom feeders who will try to talk you down
from 900$ to 100$ and when you reduce your prices by half
they will complain in an open forum and advertise on the internet
that you somehow ripped them off ...
good luck !

All true but regarding eBay, I almost always list with Buy-It-Now prices. I very rarely auction an item and only then because it's very difficult to find or scarce. So eBay isn't a crap-shoot for me.

 

[Arklatexian]

Does "consignment" still exist in photography shops as an option? Years ago that was an option for both sellers who wanted to maximize their gain and shops who wanted to minimize their investment. I suppose that is a completely old skool concept that has been supplanted by the businesses that consign fit eBay sales. Did consignment ever yield higher gains on the sale of old photography gear?

No, "consignment" is not an "Old Skool" concept. What is (around here and in many other places) "old skool", is "the camera store" itself. Locally, we once had three camera stores, two of which had in-store processing, and one of the stores had two smaller stores, mainly for drop-off and pick-up photofinishing. TODAY WE DON'T HAVE ANY. NONE, NADA. Thank goodness for FREESTYLE and others on the internet where, at least we can still buy chemicals, film, etc.......Regards!

 

[CMoore]

Yeah...No Kidding.
Every time i read... "Camera Store" ...i have to pause a minute.
I cannot remember the last time i saw or was in one.
When i lived down there, San Jose Camera was big. Not sure if they even exist anymore. San Francisco had several small camera stores spread all over The City. Not sure what exists there anymore. When i lived on Judah/24th there was a little camera shop around the corner on Irving.
I hope they went under. Circa 1995 My neighbor brought her AE-1 in for repair. They (according to Leslie) spent all of 5 seconds with it and told her it would cost more than it was worth...gave her a small allowance as a trade in and sold her another AE-1. I have no doubts she only needed a new battery to make he shutter fire, as the camera had not been used in 6-7 years.
Anyway.....i suppose some of the bigger cities still have camera stores, but unless you are lucky, i doubt most of us live near one.?

 

[MattKing]

For San Francisco, you might try Glass Key Photo: Dead Link Removed

 

[CMoore]

Ah...Cool. I dig the lower Haight.
I try to get to SF more often these days, i will check them out on a coming Saturday.
Thanks for the heads-up.

 

[MattKing]

Ah...Cool. I dig the lower Haight.
I try to get to SF more often these days, i will check them out on a coming Saturday.
Thanks for the heads-up.

To be clear, I only know of them by reputation. One of the owners (Matt Osborne?) used to participate here regularly.

 

[CMoore]

Yeah...no problem...no guarantee implied.