Chuck, my experience is that they will check on lenses, bodies, etc. up to a
point. I don't think they'll do a comparison for you, but they were happy
to give me the serial number of a BGN grade OMZ 50/1.4 they had for sale.
For the record, it was a >1.1 million serial number, so I bought it for
$60. Best $60 I ever spent. The lens itself has been obviously well-used,
which is usually a good sign. Lots of paint wear, scratches on the lens
body, mount wear, etc. but the glass is spotless and the lens performs
flawlessly.
Come to think of it, all of my favorite lenses have always been in poor
cosmetic condition--usually a sign that they've been used a lot, and if a
lens is used a lot, then it's probably pretty good.
Also, agree with the previous points about KEH only doing a cursory test of
camera bodies. When it comes to the camera itself, their grading system has
more to do with cosmetic condition than functionality.
>I believe that KEH's ratings principally depict cosmetic condition and
is aimed largely at collectors... witness the high premium for the top
end of the scale. They may also do a cursory function test but I don't
believe that it's as exhaustive as checking shutter speeds which
explains the results here. It's probably cheaper to assume the gear
works and fix or exchange what doesn't.
I can remember folks here in the past (maybe more than 10 years ago)
explaining how it was possible to call KEH and have a rep go fetch the
item in question, examine it and even compare it to another sample.
What I discovered when I tried that a year of so ago was that the sales
reps didn't have access to the stock room. Furthermore, items were sold
packaged exactly as advertised. If there was a BGN lens without a hood
and an EXC+ lens with a hood it was not possible to buy the hood from
the EXC+ lens to go with the BGN lens. It appears to me that everything
is prepackaged just as it's advertised and no substitutions are made.
That said, I have never bought anything from KEH other than BGN grade
and have always been more than satisfied with what I received. On the
other hand, I don't believe I've ever bought an OM camera body from them
or a manual focus lens... things that would be old enough to to
demonstrate common age related deterioration like sticky diaphragms or
crumbling foam.
Chuck Norcutt
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