Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2002/07/04
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]
Jan,
Whatever you do, don't buy new Leica stuff here in Zurich. As with most things,
Leicas are considerably more expensive here than in, say, Germany. This has
nothing to do with taxes or duties, since Switzerland basically has no import
duty on photographic lenses and the VAT rate is only 7.6%. It is simply the
Swiss importer and Swiss dealers ripping customers off.
Example: at http://www.leicabeimeister.com/leica/ a new Noctilux is 2635 Euro,
but that includes German VAT. If you buy it from them and they ship it to
Switzerland you will pay the VAT-free price of 2272 Euro. When the lens arrives,
the post office will collect the Swiss VAT from you, bringing the total cost to
2445 Euro plus, say, 25 Euro or so for shipping, or around 3700 CHF--still
several hundred Francs less than the Zurich price. Same thing with my M7--I
bought it in London, recovered the UK VAT at Gatwick Airport and ended up saving
almost 1000 CHF over the Swiss price. In this case, of course, the savings were
helped by the fact that I "forgot" to declare the M7 at customs when arriving
back in Zurich, but even if I had played by the book I would still have saved
hundreds of Francs.
So the short answer is: buy from Photo Village (Rich is very good to deal with),
or from one of the German shops if you prefer a source closer to home.
Nathan
jan schuller wrote:
> LUGgers,
>
> I really like to have a Noct. Because its two stops faster than a Summar but
> slightly more than twice expensive, I started to check for prices.
>
> I was offered a used one (an old one with separate shade) for 1700 USD in
> Munich. A new one in Zurich is about 3000 USD. A new one from Photovillage
> ("new import") is 2000 USD.
>
> The 1000 USD difference between NYC and Zurich seems quite spectacular to
> me.
>
> How comes?
> Which one should I take?
>
> Regards
> Jan
>
> _________________________________________________________________
> Send and receive Hotmail on your mobile device: http://mobile.msn.com
>
> --
> To unsubscribe, see http://mejac.palo-alto.ca.us/leica-users/unsub.html
- --
Nathan Wajsman
Herrliberg (ZH), Switzerland
e-mail: wajsman@webshuttle.ch
mobile: +41 78 732 1430
Photo-A-Week: http://www.wajsman.com/indexpaw2002.htm
General photo site: http://www.wajsman.com/index.htm
- --
To unsubscribe, see http://mejac.palo-alto.ca.us/leica-users/unsub.html