Hmmm. Was that recently? In the situation I was talking about the guy
told me he had no access to the stock room.
Chuck Norcutt
On 12/3/2010 10:47 AM, Nicholas Herndon wrote:
> 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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