I saw this book by Gunter Osterloh for sale here for $450.00. Is that a misprint? Is this book really worth that much? If it is, does anyone want to buy my copy?

-- Chad Hahn (thehahns@cornhusker.net), April 25, 2002

Answers

Chad, some people try to make money on this one, but no, it is not THAT rare! I wanted to read one of these though, so I offer you $60 for yours (if it is in good enough shape) cheers,

-- pat (modlabs@yahoo.com), April 25, 2002.

Ahhh, the world of rare Leica books. Pretty strange, huh? All it takes is one copy to sell on Ebay or somewhere else for some ridiculous sum and all the dealers raise their prices. I've seen it on several other "rare" camera books, none of which are worth the sky- high prices.

I had one of those books for a while. It's OK, but not worth what I paid ($125). And the binding is prone to failure. Gunter's trying to reprint the book if he can find the funding. That would be nicer.

Skip

-- Skip Williams (skipwilliams@pobox.com), April 25, 2002.

The last two copies offered on Ebay sold for $225 and $210 respectively.

-- David Seaman (david@leicam.freeserve.co.uk), April 25, 2002.

Hi Chad,

I bought this book by mistake. I think it is not up to other publications and contains maybe 3 pictures which I find adorable.

Cheers, Peter.

-- Peter Niessen (niessen@ifh.de), April 25, 2002.

I like the book and find it an invaluable technical guide. For aethestics I would look elsewhere. Rumors of Mr. Osterloh coming out with a new English version, there are already is a new German language edition, have been circulating for YEARS. Do not hold your breath.

-- John Collier (jbcollier@shaw.ca), April 25, 2002.

I got mine in mint shape about 4 years ago from a small camera store, for $10. As I read it pages began falling out. My advice: buy it for $10 if you can, and get the other few hundred $ worth of advice right here on this forum ;>)

-- Jay (infinitydt@aol.com), April 25, 2002.

Great technical resource. Pages fall out on all copies--horribly bound. He should revise & update. One of the better current Leica books. But definitely not worth more than $75.

-- Patrick (pg@patrickgarner.com), April 25, 2002.

Just as a reminder, the last German edition was from around 1994, costed about 36 USD, is still available, the next German edition should arrive in about 6 months, and may even be paired up with a new English translation. But we're not sure about that.

-- Michael Kastner (kastner@zedat.fu-berlin.de), April 26, 2002.

Should you find a copy, be prepared to spend some money at a book bindery. The original job of binding was very poor, hence the pages tend to fall our. Otherwise it is a terrific book that belongs in the library of every M series Leicaphile.

-- George L. Doolittle (geodoolitt@aol.com), April 27, 2002.

On Osterloh's book. Make no mistake: The best technical source on Leica M, up to the M6 "classic". The explanations as to how the Leica M rangefinder, viewfinder, metering system etc. work are absolutely without equal. FWIW, unless the book is or was updated since my version, will not contain anything on the M6TTL or the M7.

But the binding is unfortunately very poor. Mine came apart like others have noted above. I think it is very worthwhile, but not at that price.

-- Eliot (erosen@lij.edu), April 27, 2002.

I paid $14.00 for mine at a used book store in Philadelphia. It is in excellent condition and offers lots of useful information for any Leica M user.

-- John Alfred Tropiano (jat18@psu.edu), April 29, 2002.