This is crazy already ('old' lens prices)

[medform-norm]

Steve, I'm surprised that you believe people when they tell you how much (or little) they paid. This for two reasons. We all, like anglers, lie. And the really great steals are very very scarce.

For example, not that long ago I bought a 135/5.6 Symmar (jes' plain Symmar, i.e., convertible) in barrel for $32 delivered. That's way below the going rate and was when I snagged it. No lie, man! You can't match that, and neither can I.

Cheers,

Dan

Dan, the master snagger, has spoken. Of course Dan doesn't tell us it's often a hit-and-miss business for the one doing the snagging. See it like a poker game, you win some, you lose some, whether it be in the mail or because the lens is much worse than desribed and has plastered fungus all over its elements.

[Capocheny]

There happens to be one lens on there now. Its a Wollie Soft focus, $10 starting bid. In the auction, the buyer states that you 'must email me' prior to placing a bid. I did so, and I received an email stating that if I were "ready to purchase, the buy-it-now price is $1400". I wasn't ready, so I bid $20. about 4 hours before the auction closed, the seller ended the auction early - no reason given.
It is back up for auction again today. This time, I lodged a complaint; we'll see what happens.

There's a number of sellers that engage in this practice on the big auction site and I, for one, would never bid on their auction again. IMHO, it's a blatant disregard for the process and I simply don't support the practice.

Whether it's against *ba* regulations or not... they don't seem to take this practice too seriously. And, therefore, I've seen it happen more often than I care to see!

[Unfortunately, even if I don't bid on the item again... there will ALWAYS be others who will. As a result, it's certainly not a loss to the seller if I'm not amongst those bidding. That's just life!]

This isn't to say that I don't understand the reasons for a seller doing it... but I just don't have to condone the actions by bidding on their items again!

Just my 2.2 cents worth.

As for the price of old brass lenses... yup, the market dictates what they're worth. If you really, really want the lens then you'll have to pony up with a few more dollars! FWIW, it seems to me that the prices of lenses, in general, are climbing of late anyway. So, I'm not terribly surprised to see these oldies increase in value either.

That's just the way the market operates!

Cheers

[Steve H]

Steve, I'm surprised that you believe people when they tell you how much (or little) they paid. This for two reasons. We all, like anglers, lie. And the really great steals are very very scarce.

For example, not that long ago I bought a 135/5.6 Symmar (jes' plain Symmar, i.e., convertible) in barrel for $32 delivered. That's way below the going rate and was when I snagged it. No lie, man! You can't match that, and neither can I.

Cheers,

Dan

Yes, I know I know

[Brian Vuillemenot]

I don't bother trying to bid on lenses on "the bay" anymore. It's just insane that people are paying more for an item used from someone they don't know than they could buy it for new from an established and reputable business, especially since the condition of the lens is invariably several notches beloew what it's described as. Of course, no one can leave negative feedback to complain, because then the seller would blast you back with negative feedback (remember a few years ago when sellers left positive feedback first?) The few bargains I've gotten are through luck- I just happened to see something I wanted that not many other people saw, and bid on it without expecting to get it. If I set out to buy, say, a 210 Apo-Sironar S and found one, with my luck the price would go way up. With all the many retailers selling used lenses that are acurately described at very reasonable prices (Bagder and Midwest are two of them), there's no point getting involved in all the insanity going on at "the auction site"!

[Capocheny]

I don't bother trying to bid on lenses on "the bay" anymore. It's just insane that people are paying more for an item used from someone they don't know than they could buy it for new from an established and reputable business, especially since the condition of the lens is invariably several notches beloew what it's described as. Of course, no one can leave negative feedback to complain, because then the seller would blast you back with negative feedback (remember a few years ago when sellers left positive feedback first?) The few bargains I've gotten are through luck- I just happened to see something I wanted that not many other people saw, and bid on it without expecting to get it. If I set out to buy, say, a 210 Apo-Sironar S and found one, with my luck the price would go way up. With all the many retailers selling used lenses that are acurately described at very reasonable prices (Bagder and Midwest are two of them), there's no point getting involved in all the insanity going on at "the auction site"!

Brian,

For the most part I don't disagree with you. But, I think it's like any buyer-seller relationship... you really have to look at who you're buying from. And, the other side of the coin is that you really have to know what the value of the item is BEFORE you bid on it.

I've managed to score a number of items at really decent prices and the conditions of those items were pretty much spot on as described in the listing. I think I've only had one or two bad deals from the bay. One of those was from a scuzzy photographer in LA who was, theoretically, from a big studio. But, the rest of my transactions have been terrific.

But, what you said about the cost of a used lens versus a new one is also quite true in a number of the cases I've seen. I think much of this over-bidding arises from a newly declared "cult" lense. For example, in the case of a Fujinon 240A, people were bidding upwards of 90% of the retail price... and for a few bucks more, they could have had a brand new lens with full warranty. But, the bidding frenzy seems to result from people mistakenly believing that the lens they're bidding on will be "the last one" on the bay, which is absolutely hilarious!

It's a case of simple buyer-beware... or beginners GREAT LUCK!

[And, I fully agree with your comment regarding Midwest and Badger... good people to deal with!]

Cheers

[Brian Ellis]

You may have better luck using a bid snipe, such as Auction Sniper.

A sniping service won't help if you don't place the highest bid. They're good mainly to keep your existence and bid price a secret from others, to save you the trouble of trying to perfectly time your bid so that it gets in only a couple seconds before the end of the auction, to make sure you don't forget about the auction and fail to bid, and to allow you to go to bed instead of staying up half the night waiting for an auction to end. I never understand why people bother bidding more than 10 seconds before the end of an auction. Nothing that happens before then has anything to do with the price that it will take to win since there's always going to be snipers out there with bids that you don't know about.

[Ash]

I really dont like people bidding up on items. I once put a low bid in for some Rolleicord filters. The buy it now was £30, but starting bid was a fiver. Someone deliberately bid me up in the last 24 hours, so I paid something like £32 and had to wait 4 days longer. I could have just b-i-n'd it to begin with.


It's stupid

[medform-norm]

With all this talk about Petzvals and brass canons, I though I'd check out the lenses that came with a Delineascope magic lantern we bought 10 years ago in our pre-eBay days and lo-and-behold, one of 'em is a Petzval design. No maker or brand, just a number, no iris - all in all not very remarkable. But it does cover 5x7! I guess it will stay where it is, though, as we have more than enough portrait lenses, like a huge Goerz Hypar 360/3.5 that come off eBay for a true 'Jim Gallli' price. Patience and plenty of time to rove the darker corners of eBay and like sites such as the Swedish Tradera is all you need.

[Dan Fromm]

I really dont like people bidding up on items. I once put a low bid in for some Rolleicord filters. The buy it now was £30, but starting bid was a fiver. Someone deliberately bid me up in the last 24 hours, so I paid something like £32 and had to wait 4 days longer. I could have just b-i-n'd it to begin with.


It's stupid

No, its not stupid.

You are at best too hopeful, at worst a cheapskate. Not that there's anything wrong with being a cheapskate, I'm one m'self. You hoped to, um, steal the filters but the seller priced them right. Why are you surprised or disappointed?

I like to, um, steal items offered on eBay too. But when I'm outbid on an item I don't cry foul, I accept that someone wanted it more than I did.

[Ash]

nah it is more that if I KNEW I was going to be bid up *over* the original price, I wouldn't have waited 4 extra days, I would have bought it for a reasonable price straight away.

I'm a cheapskate but I'm also very impatient, so when I am patient enough to wait for an auction to end when I could have bought something much earlier for slightly less, doesnt make sense. Get me?