The recent horror story about the telescope that was supposed to be of
"good" quality, but was in pretty awful shape, inspires me to write the
following.
My experience with used equipment has generally been bad. The one really
good experience I've had occurred recently, when I purchased a
26-year-old Minox C in absolutely mint condition. (I've seen stuff that
sat in stores that looked worse.) If it's of any interest, I bought it
from a guy on eBay, who posted a photo of the camera.
In general, you can't trust the ratings given by dealers. It takes a lot
of time to look carefully at the equipment for blemishes and
malfunctions. The employees rarely have the time. Here are some
examples.
I bought a used Polaroid 680 SE body from a dealer who'd advertised it
as "Mint -". It actually had small scratches and mars that should have
reduced it to a 9.
I've also had bad experiences with KEH. Although KEH is a highly ethical
company that makes every effort to treat its customers well, it is only
slightly better at grading. I bought a Pentax 110 and some lenses, and
found that the lens mounting catches were broken (because the owners had
simply twisted the lenses off the camera without pressing the release!).
When I later sold this stuff back to KEH, they wanted to downgrade the
offered price because the lenses had these defects! ("Let not thy right
hand know what thy left hand is doing.")
The most startling experience occurred recently when I visited a friend
on Long Island. He did business with a store that wanted to sell him a
Leica M3 and several lenses. I spoke to the owner on the phone, who told
me the camera and lenses were in really excellent condition. I thought
this odd, because the camera was 40+ years old.
When I got to see the camera and lenses, I found they were in
considerably worse shape than "excellent," with lots of little scratches
and mars, and a few dings. In other words, they looked like 40-year-old
cameras that had _not_ been abused, but had taken the expected amount of
wear and tear that would occur in "normal" use.
I asked him why he had given the equipment such a high rating. He said
that there was such a great demand for Leica equipment that there was
"inflation" of perceived quality levels. You know, I actually believe
him. (By the way, I liked the guy and would have no hesitation doing
business with him. I just don't trust his grading.)
The point of this? You can't trust anyone. Get an absolute return
guarantee when you buy used equipment.
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