Canon A-1's on eBay

<p>What's up with the ridiculous asking prices for A-1's on eBay? Come on, $300-500 for a 30+ year old camera?</p>

<p>A while back I had a thought to pick up an A-1 mostly as a reminder of my film days, when I had two of them, both with Motor Drive MA. eBay was my only venue, and I watched many auctions for some time until I placed a bid for one with the camera, a 50mm f/1.4 SSC lens, a Canon 135mm lens with hood, Power Wider A, 155A flash, 70-210mm zoom, flash bracket, camera bag and a few doo-dads. The small auction photos weren't all that great, mostly different groupings of the same gear and they weren't clear enough to see what shape the stuff was in. There wasn't much in the description either, some of the gear shown in the photos wasn't even listed. </p>

<p>I suspected the gear was being offered by a non photographer. Anyway I won the auction for all of $76.00, plus $24.00 postage from the US to me in Canada. Actual postage on the huge parcel was around $33.00. The camera came with a "never ready" case, and it appears in probably spent most of its life in the case, as the only brassing was on the top of the pentaprism which I assume was from removing the top of the case over the years. Everything else was in good shape, but the flash would not work. So I felt I got a pretty good deal.</p>

<p>Just checking the eBay "Buy it Now" prices now I still see the really high prices, but when checking the completed auctions I see many A-1's with one or several lenses often sold for $75.00 or less.</p>

<p>I have to assume the cameras are being offered by non photo hobbyists who think they can actually get their extremely high asking prices. There seems to be an endless supply of the cameras and lenses, and it is mostly a waiting game to find what you want at a reasonable price. I followed an auction for a Canon 100-300mm lens, but when it went over $75.00, I lost interest. Bid on another one the next day and won it for $12.95 - with the proper hood! Go figure.<br>

<br />End of rant!</p>

 

<p>A Canon F-1 just sold on eBay for $53.00, a far better camera, not the third version which requires #544 battery for certain functions. I've owned AI's and two F-1's....IMHO I prefer the build quality and mechanical operation of the Ca.1972 F-1 and Ca. 1977 F-1n. The A series are entirely battery dependent and eventually some will be afflicted with the dreaded "squeak" in the mirror braking system. It's a matter of opinion whether this malady is fatal if unattended on the A series Canons.</p>

<p>Or the $500 FTb, or the $800 EF....</p>

<p>A seller can ask whatever they want for the price, but the real price is what the buyer is willing to pay.</p>

<p>I haven't paid more than $40 for any A Series camera, most have been less than $20 since February of this year.</p>

<p>The best advice I have, set a maximum you want pay and stick to it. If the sellers are asking ridiculous prices, just wait a while. Sooner or later there will be more and most of them will be at a different price (mostly lower).</p>

<p>Ed</p><div></div>

<p>To see what is actually the going price, of course you have to look at "completed listings" -- there you will see the long red list of all the starting prices or BIN offers that never got so much as a single bid or offer.</p>

<p>It's as Ed says.</p>

<p>Thanks for this thread. I am currently looking out for a Canon FD mount. It is good to know about the going prices since I am not all that familiar with ebay. I have had plenty of 'near misses' so far. I think I will stick with Ed's advice - set a maximum and stick with it.<br>

Ed: That A-1 sure is a beauty.<br>

Paul: A Canon F-1 for $53.00? I do not know how I missed it !!.</p>

<p>To see what is the going price, I always go check KEH before I decide to bid. Compared to the exact same lens/body/accessories in KEH's catalog, quite often online auctions end higher for items in poorer (or poorly documented) condition that don't come with a 14 day return policy.</p>

<p>Off the Evil bay I got a AE-1 sent to me for 49.00 and with a 50mm F-1.4 SSC For me that's a good price</p>

<p>I got a similar auction deal - a nice Canon kit for £70(GBP) - about a year ago. Asking/selling prices for a body then ranged from £50 to £100, regardless of condition. I feel that prices drift around, endlessly, depending on any number of obscure factors like time of year and wind direction.It's happening all the time and well worth ignoring.</p>

<p>For example, some people selling off family estates tend to overvalue equipment, as seen in the widespread use of "rare" in descriptions, and in seeing original receipts from the 1970s or 80s they wrongly believe that the current value must be about the same, or more. (Then there are the scammers who may be up to some sort of trick (like 'shilling') that we cannot yet work out.).</p>

<p>In my recent experience, some of the best deals can come from well-respected shops (whether on the street or the web).</p>

<p>I like old rangefinders, and even the Canonets are going for ridiculously large amounts of money, OR, they are the ones that don't work at all ("Don't have any way to test it", "It worked last time I used it a year ago"), for cheap. Is it so hard to get a working camera off fleabay?</p>

<p>Michael, I've largely had the opposite luck, but then I never bid on anything of the "don't have any way.." crowd unless the person has a return policy offering a complete refund (I'm willing to pay the return shipping for the right to try it out).</p>

<p>I am also very patient. I research both the KEH and other used-equipment dealers' prices and the completed listings. I decide what I will pay and keep trying until I do win. Occasionally I will try too low, and have to go higher than I intended originally after not winning for a long streak. Most real bargains I have found are ones where for some inexplicable reason the seller has set it up so the sale ended at something like 2AM Pacific time. At least the manual snipers are relatively inactive then.</p>

<p>Of course, it also helps if you are looking for things that everyone else considers to have the value of a dead raccoon. When I started on my DDR cameras, they were very cheap. I am still in awe that they are much higher now. I always said that the one thing you could be sure of about my collection was that in five years it would be worth just as little as it is now, but that really hasn't turned out to be true.</p>

<p>When I started this camera collection racket, I bought a fairly nice set of tools for repair, but the truth is that I haven't had much chance to use the tools since nearly everything I buy seems to work just fine, often a little exercise and (dare I say it?) a little naphtha is all it takes.</p>

<p> </p>

<p>I too get a laugh out of the BIN prices on eBay. I've bought more than a few A1 and AE1 cameras at junk shops around here for $5 or so. I usually resell the clean ones on eBay, and I usually get $50 to $80 for them. I much prefer the AE1 to the A1, and of course the F1 is on a different level altogether. I'm surprised at the going price for the FTB cameras, it seems that the manually operated cameras (no batteries required) are making a resurgence, it's probably a good time to get rid of the three which I have.</p>

<p>I have to think these prices (at least some of them) are being asked in ignorance. People think, "I paid $500 for this camera when new, it's still pristine, so it has to be worth at least $350." I see a lot of this on Craigslist. I can understand, it's hard to accept the level of depreciation if you're not aware.</p>

<p>I suffered from the same ignorance when I first got here, and tried to sell my Rebel XS 35mm package (body, lens, flash, bag...for which I paid $800 new) for $400. Of course, no one took me up on my "generous" offer. Once I did a little reading and learning, I just decided to keep it since the camera is more useful to me than $35, but managed to sell the lens and flash as part of a package of other things.</p>

<p>MY view on film cameras, which I use when attempting to convince people that the 35mm SLR they're attempting to sell isn't really worth that much. "Selling a film camera today is like trying to sell a VCR - it may be the best VCR in the world, but it's a <em><strong>VCR</strong></em>..." That usually gets the point across.<br>

Of course, I'm usually using this line when it's me trying to buy their old film camera.......</p>

<blockquote>

<p><a href="../photodb/user?user_id=1841065">JDM von Weinberg</a> Jul 25, 2010; 12:20 p.m.</p>

</blockquote>

 

<blockquote>

<p>To see what is actually the going price, of course you have to look at "completed listings" -- there you will see the long red list of all the starting prices or BIN offers that never got so much as a single bid or offer.<br>

It's as Ed says.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>From an occasional seller's point of view, if you look at those people with the ridiculous BIN prices as opposed to what I can actually get for a camera, I've sometimes checked one of these seller's recent Feedback profile and seen that yes, <em>they do actually sell a lot of items</em>. For ridiculous inflated prices. While I won't buy from them (I'm a horror as a buyer), I have to admire the salesmanship in getting $800 for an FTb the seller probably got from the same junk shop at the same price as I get mine.</p>

 

 

<p>Hope it's OK to take the thread here.....I have an A-1 that I'm willing to part with. It has started to give the shutter squeak (I think it sounds more like a spring going "ziiiingg" every once in a while). There is one slight body ding, but otherwise in excellent shape (I can provide pix of it). Now that I have a DSLR I am probably not going to do much about the A-1, so it could go to a new home (it also has the power winder with it, and of course the little body grip as well). Taking offers, I understand that the shutter squeak plays into its value, but it's a great camera. I'm keeping my F-1 and Nikon N90s to compliment the DSLR. Please feel free to make an offer on the A-1 if interested. Thanks.</p>

<p>I've also noticed that the prices on A1s have been getting a bit spendy as of late. That being said, I bought my current A1 on the bay for $225 about 8 years ago, but it was old stock, new in the box. That was the same price I paid for my original brand new A1 in 1985, so overall, I felt pretty happy with the purchase. As far as I'm concerned, the Canon A1 is a masterpiece, and there's no other camera in my quiver that I prefer shooting with more.<br>

On a side note, I just bought a T90 on the bay for $54 + shipping and the bloody thing looks like it's never been used. I'm taking it for a test drive this weekend at Mt. Rainier with a few rolls of Velvia that have been sitting in my freezer for a while. <br>

As others have said here, just be patient and eventually, you'll get the deal you're after. The guy I purchased the T90 from got it at an estate sale and knew nothing about the camera's intrinsic or historic value. As far as he was concerned, it was just an old camera in a box full of old cameras that belonged to some dead guy.</p>

<p>I had a Canon A1 back in the 80's with a f1.4 lens and it was top notch. I loved the display inside the viewfinder... the settings could be manipulated without removing the eye from the subject.<br>

I too have noticed the ungodly prices for camera gear on the 'bay. What's even stranger is the stuff often sells for the asking price!</p>