Gents:

A friend wants to depart with a tri-Elmar, he recently bought a Summicron 35 and lives happily with it.

What would be the resale value , in a range? I understand he kept all boxes and documents, bought it new a year and half ago.

Thanks for reading this. X.

-- Xavier d'Alfort (hot_billexf@hotmail.com), April 06, 2002

Answers

I would say US$1100 for mint in box current version and less for the older one.

-- ray tai (razerx@netvigator.com), April 06, 2002.

You sure get a good deal in the US! Here in the UK a secondhand first version goes for £999 (US $1450), the latest version would be £1200 ($1750). New they are around £1550 ($2250).

-- Giles Poilu (giles@monpoilu.icom43.net), April 06, 2002.

The Tri-Elmar is probably the only Leica lens that I would shun away from buying used, and only purchase new Leica USA w/3 year passport.

While evidently a marvelous lens optically, and a great idea for travel and walk around shooting, there's just too much that could go wrong with the frame selector mechanism that I suspect would be quite expensive to fix.

Many on this and other forums have noted frame selection problems, especially on the first version.

Good luck,

Jerry

-- Jerome R. Pfile, Jr. (JerryPfile@msn.com), April 06, 2002.

I bought my v.1 Tri-Elmar used and it is a little finnicky pulling up framelines with both my M6's and Konica Hexar RF (but differently with Leica and Hexar). I've tried several samples of the v.1 and v.2 and one way or another they all are a little iffy on one body or another. I know of people who sent theirs back to Leica more than once and the problem remains, expecially if they use the lens on more than one body. So to me it's more reason to buy second-hand rather than new...why pay more for something that doesn't work any better? If the framelines don't snap into view when you change focal lengths a quick flick of the frame selector rectifies it immediately. In the US, $1000-1100 for a mint v.1 and $1300-1400 for a mint v.2 are average. Less than that, you've got a bargain.

-- Jay (infinitydt@aol.com), April 06, 2002.