Re: [Leica] Waiting more than a year for the new R 35-70/2.8 ASPH

[4season <4season@boulder.net>]

Pascal wrote:
> 
> At Photokina 98 (remember?) the new Vario-Elmarit-R 35-70/2.8 ASPH was
> presented. Deliveries were promised for early Spring 99.
> 
> Meanwhile, there were several manufacturing problems that I explained in
> an earlier posting to this group, which made the delivery date slip back
> to after the Summer.
> 
> Now, after an enquiry with one of the two largest German Leica dealers,
> it appears that one would have to wait for another year to actually
> acquire one of these babies, if an order was placed now. He gets one of
> them every 6 weeks, and there is already a long waiting list !!!
> 
> No wonder Leica is in dire financial straits :-(
> 
Things could be worse: Telescope maker Astro-Physics has a waiting list
for their waiting list! No joke; you sign up to wait until you're told
to pay 50%, then you get the privilige of waiting maybe another year (or
so I'm told--I'm still waiting to get on the waiting list) for delivery.
Used market? hah! If you have a minty late model AP, you can pretty much
call the shots price-wise.

Too bad that Leica's tardy product happens to be such a bread-and-butter
thing, rather than some low-production exotic.

- -- 
Jeff Segawa
Boulder, Colorado
www.boulder.net/~4season