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[OM] from "SALE" to "AUCTION"; what is mint?; camera bags

Subject: [OM] from "SALE" to "AUCTION"; what is mint?; camera bags
From: William Sommerwerck <williams@xxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Sat, 28 Nov 1998 07:07:07 -0800
"I just lost an opportunity to acquire an OM-4T when the seller changed
the terms of sale from the stated price of $500 (mint condition) to "I
was offered $550 for the camera by another party; can you match this?"

"Like a fool, I refused, pointing out that he, the seller, had already
accepted my offer and that it was not ethical for him to change the
contract terms now. He didn't seem too disturbed by the ethics argument,
really, and the phone conversation ended on a cool note.

"The seller wrote me that he had five responses to his ad and I assume
that one or more of those were from this list, so I thought I should
warn list members. This fellow (name upon request) has proven himself
less than honest once; perhaps his view of 'mint' is also flexible."


No, Mr. Russell, you did the _right_ thing. You had no way of knowing
whether he had a legitimate offer for $550 -- he could have been lying.
If you had accepted, you would simply have been supporting this
despicable way of doing business (in every sense of "doing business").

This has to end. The names of the people who pull this crap should be
posted and the members of this list should agree to permanently stop
doing business with them.

I might add that $500 is far too low a price for a mint OM-4T body. A
new body sells for $1000, so this person should have been asking around
$750. That would have given him some "wiggle room" to _come down_ in
price if he couldn't find a buyer.

When selling, you should _always_ ask a price slightly higher than you
are willing to settle for. If someone so badly wants the item that
they'll pay the higher price, you're ahead. (This is not unethical;
remember, the "market" is supposed to determine the price, and no one is
forcing anyone to buy anything.) If not, you can come down a bit, and
everyone is happy.

>>>>>

Although I might have mentioned this before, most dealers (including
KEH) do a poor job of inspecting and grading equipment. There is also
"quality inflation" of very popular collectibles (eg, Leica). An honest
individual is more likely to accurately grade the equipment he or she
has for sale. For example, several months ago I bought a 27-year-old
Minox C that was supposedly mint and unused. I don't know if it was
really unused, but it sure was mint. More like "brand-new."

>>>>>

Almost all my camera bags are Tamrac. They aren't the only good bags,
but I've been very happy with them. I like the way you can pull apart
the dividers and rearrange the bag almost any way you want. Construction
quality and durability also appear to be first-rate. They make a suede
neckstrap you can move from camera to camera, too.

Customer service is good. They'll make up extra dividers (and other
internal components) for you at a very reasonable price. As far as I
know, Tamrac products are still made in the good ol' US of A. I doubt
that even one of their huge bags needs more than an hour's sewing, so
they could easily pay their people a decent salary. (The appalling thing
about Nike is not only that they pay too-low wages to overseas workers,
but that the shoe's price _does not_ reflect the near-zero labor costs.)

I especially like the Tamrac bags with the "strobe hatch." I use it for
my 70-210/2.8 APO Sigma.

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