Hi Jack,

yes, a very good point. However, sellers are not necessarily MF users,
just someone who has an MF camera to sell. In many cases, it may have been
inherited from an older relative, who wasn't actively using it. In other
cases, it was discovered abandoned in an attic (cf. folders, TLRs etc.).
Some of it is military surplus (e.g., koni-omega) no longer used there.

And you also point out, correctly I think, that some MF users selling MF
gear on EBAY are also going to continue to use MF, just use the dollars
from selling their extra MF kits and lenses to raise cash to go digital
etc.? ;-)

And some of us just want to sell to try the other guy's stuff, always
greener on the other pasture? ;-)

But the net effect, I think, is that a lot of "dormant" MF cameras and
items which were NOT in use, in closets or attics or inherited etc. end up
on EBAY.

Also many stores going out of business end up putting some stuff on EBAY.
An odd example is I bought one of my 45mm super komura very wide lenses
for bronica (for stereo work on 2 S2A bodies) from a Hallmark Card Shop
for circa $100. I asked the lady how the heck she had such odd-ball lenses
to list on Ebay in her card shop stock. Turns out the camera store closed
and left behind what they couldn't sell (!) and she moved in and had to
sell it to make space :-0) So there is also a source of gear from used
shops and pawn shops which haven't been in use either for years, yet which
when sold on Ebay can go to current users, including potentially new users
;-)

So yes, I think a lot of this used gear at low prices is attracting buyers
who would otherwise buy new gear at local camera shops in the pre-EBAY
days. And yes, some business schools are studying the impacts, as they are
major, of EBAY on marketing and pricing models and all that ;-) But all I
have to do is compare prices today against what I recorded on my website
for the past (see http://medfmt.8k.com/bronpg.html and mf/kowapg.html for
examples). It is quickly clear that current MF prices for used gear are
often half of what they were four or five years ago.

regards bobm
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* Robert Monaghan POB 752182 Southern Methodist Univ. Dallas Tx 75275 *
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