Is the Leica an "Investment?"

[Mustafa Umut Sarac]

Photograph machines are not wallstreet investment. If you want to invest money , you missed the train , you could buy stocks hit the bottom. If you think you will be a millionaire with your camera... you have higher expectations than many Leica collectors. But you can seach the thrift stores to find a forgotten serial number less than 50. You can reach to the villa when you are dreaming listening that important speeches.

[erikg]

Lens prices are certainly going nuts. I sold a summicron recently and it did very well compared to what I paid a few years ago. Investment? I don't know but it was nice to have a transaction go that way for a change.

[summicron1]

Oh really? Let me know when you see Donald Trump shopping in Walmart Saving, unless you earn a great deal and spend almost nothing, is NOT the way to become a millionaire. This I know from experience!!! LOL!!!

actually, if you read "the millionaire next door" you will discover that MOST people who have money get that way by (ta-DA) not spending it on junque.

People like Herr Trump are show=offs who don't have any money because they spent it all trying to look rich.

[desertratt]

Fabulous vintage automobile prices went down when the Great Recession hit. Nobody but nobody can tell you if a Leica will go up down or float around the middle in the future. Is your model/lens a Rolls or a Hundai? Is it in percect condition? Hard core collecftors don't care if the darn thing takes actual photographs, but it has to look perfect. A minority of collectors are real shooters. Being rich in goods or dollars and being miserable doing what you do is no life for anyone but the Mr. Toads of this world.

[David A. Goldfarb]

Make some famous photographs with your Leica, and it will be worth a fortune when you're dead, brassing and all.

[Two23]

I don't see camera gear as an "investment." I have a pretty nice little collection containing pre-Civil War lenses, some really nice "big name" cameras from the 1930s, a 1940s Leica IIIc and three lenses, and a nice selection of LF lenses vintage 1895--1930. These are toys, not investments. At best I just expect to break about even when I resell.


Kent in SD

[lxdude]

A camera is a tool and a Leica is a nice tactile tool to work with. I have never thought of owning one as an investment, but I know collectors buy them and put them in cabinets. I suppose I am a collector’s nightmare, as I actually use them and they get dented and worn.

No, collectors love people like you, because it means fewer in top cosmetic condition!

[elekm]

Buying a Leica so you'll have something to talk about seems a bit much. But people buy things -- including cameras -- as status symbols all of the time.

Buying a camera as an investment only makes sense if you can flip it for a quick profit and then reinvest the money either in another camera to flip or to put the cash into some other type of investment.

A camera as a long-term investment is usually an "iffy" proposition because the market can be finicky. What's hot today can be surplus goods tomorrow. You should buy it only if you can pick it up very inexpensively -- less than half of its market value, I would say.

[cepwin]

I don't look at that sort of thing as an investment. It something one can and should use and enjoy. I look at classic cars the same way...if theoretically , I even went to the Barrett-Jackson classic car auction as a bidder (I've been as a "civillian") I'd be looking for a nice driver....don't see the point of stuff you have to just look at for fear of killing it's value.

[Mainecoonmaniac]

Houses as "investments" got the world's economy in trouble. Camera are for making pictures, houses are shelter. We should have learned something from the Dutch after their tulip craze.