[Leica] Warranty cards and Your Cheating Heart..........

["BIRKEY, DUANE" <dbirkey@hcjb.org.ec>]

Marc wrote:

> Your heirs may well feel differently, once you are dead and gone and 
they
> begin to comprehend that your gear is worth a gazillion dollars.  YOU 
ARE
> CHEATING YOUR WIDOW AND YOUR CHILDREN!  WE ARE WATCHING HOW YOU DEPRIVE
> YOUR OFFSPRING OF THEIR COLLEGE EDUCATIONS!

While a truly mint M-6 with box and cards may bring more money someday 
than a plain mint one.  A  EX+ or EX with cards and box will not bring a 
significant amount, if any additional funds upon it's sale.   Good grief, 
for a while, you could buy a new M-6 cheaper from some dealers than a 
used one in a box.  My guess is it's going to be a long time before the 
M-6 has any collectible value.  I think people are going to continue to 
search for and pay big bucks for  clean  M-2's M-3's and M-4's for a long 
time.  There are a lot of M-3's still out there and it's truly a 
collectible classic.  If you want an idea of what to expect, look what a 
M-4 2 brings on the used market.   I wouldn't even start to get your 
hopes up too much until they come out with M-7.  Besides, for all we 
know, they could be producing M-6's for the next 20 years.   If you 
really want it to be valuable, leave it sealed in the box.

If your widow and offspring are going to be dependent on the sale of your 
Leica EQ after you die, you have failed miserably in your financial 
planning and your priorities are way out of wack.  You better sell it all 
now and invest in something that will provide.   I hope my daughter 
learns to appreciate my life's work and photography.   I hope the last 
thing she will want or need to do is sell my equipment.

If you are going to use M-6 on a regular basis,  I'd forget about it's 
future value and just enjoy using it instead of worrying about how much 
re-sale value that scratch just knocked off.  Collectors don't pay big 
bucks for anything less than mint unless it's really rare and extremely 
desirable.  Talk to any collector who owns a M2, M3, or M4,   they tell 
you the M-6 is neither one.

But, hey, I've been right before.

Duane Birkey

HCJB World Radio
 Quito Ecuador