Crazy Pricing…

It may be the that it's kind of a bleed through of what I've noticed with Japanese ebay sellers recently. Once the Yen took a nose dive in the exchange rate against the US Dollar - and I presume many other currencies as well - the sellers based in Japan suddenly started to raise their item prices, and almost doubled their shipping costs.

Not long ago, the last piece of my Contax G1 puzzle was to find a TLA 140 w/case, and everything (at the end of April) listed from almost all Japanese sellers, started somewhere around $69 US, plus $19 in shipping, and that's where they'd been for multiple months. I ended up buying one from a US seller at roughly their listed item cost alone, with shipping included. I still keep a saved search for anything related to 'Contax TLA' and barely a week later, the lowest cost I saw was $139 and $30-35 for shipping. Those prices are still elevated as of today... if not higher.

The Yen bounced back a fair amount since then, but apparently nobody has seen fit to reduce their prices, and my gut tells me they think they can set the world price. To me, that's a preposterous idea, but at the same time, the listing prices seem to have gone up for US and Canadian sellers, as if they are trying to recoup their investment, or they've fooled themselves into thinking that they'll somehow get paid these elevated asking prices. Maybe they have a notion that 'collector = stupid' at any cost, but that's seriously flawed logic in my case.

There may be another consideration, although I'm not convinced how reasonable an assumption it might really be, as it's almost an apples to oranges type of situation. Brand new equally high speed 'specialty' lenses at listed in the same value space at premium pricing. For instance, LCE is taking preorders for the Samyang AF 85mm f/1.4 II for Sony FE at £767.00, and selling the Zeiss Batis 85mm F1.8 Sonnar Sony FE for the same £999.00 as they're asking for the ML f/1.2. They may see the cost alone as typical pricing, regardless of something being legacy glass or modern. They're all presented in rarified air, and presumably buyers should expect suitable high pricing for any of them. I'm guessing there are some who have no patience, and will pay it - but not me.

The funny thing is that LCE is not in a rush to sell that lens. I actually tried to buy it but they said they wouldn't ship outside of the UK. I went as far as finding a UK address to provide to them, but then they wouldn't accept payment from my AmEx or PayPal accounts because they weren't UK accounts. Very weird in this day and age to limit your customer pool to one small country, especially when you've listed the item on the internet.