gloria_moriarty Posted January 24, 2006 Share Posted January 24, 2006 Am trying to estimate what the fair market value of a Leica KE7A (military verision of the M4)would be. I know that it was made for the U.S. military in the early 1970's and it has an Elcon lens. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eliot_rosen1 Posted January 24, 2006 Share Posted January 24, 2006 It is a 50/2 Elcan lens. A complete unit with camera, lens, lenshood, case, cap, manual in nice condition would go for on the order of $ 10,000 retail. Give or take $ 500-1000. That's the ballpark. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vick_ko Posted January 24, 2006 Share Posted January 24, 2006 I haven't seen one for sale in a year, but I would estimate $5000 to $7000. Do you have one for sale? regardsVick Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eliot_rosen1 Posted January 24, 2006 Share Posted January 24, 2006 I have seen several for sale recently and $ 5000-7000 is unrealistically low. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
john_shriver Posted January 24, 2006 Share Posted January 24, 2006 I was just reading Jason Schneider's book of Camera Collector columns from Popular Photography, and there were only 40-50 units from the production overrun that were sold on the open market, rather than to the military. Anything that rare is going to be very pricey, to say the least. Probably rare enough to be attractive for forgery, at least the body. (Forging the lens is probably impractical.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
torben_daltoft Posted January 24, 2006 Share Posted January 24, 2006 Take a look at http://auction.igavel.com/AuctionHelp.taf?S=N&_start=1&_UserReference=7F00000147187EB068D7E9170EC743D29BF6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eliot_rosen1 Posted January 25, 2006 Share Posted January 25, 2006 John, there were 500 military KE7A units (camera plus lens plus outfit) sold to the US Army. Many of these saw little use, and they were stored in a warehouse. Sometime in the 1990s, the Army auctioned them off, and a number of complete units were purchased by camera dealers, who promptly sold them to collectors. The number of military units is 500, not 40-50. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
john_shriver Posted January 25, 2006 Share Posted January 25, 2006 What I was saying was that 40-50 units were sold directly to dealers, without ever getting into the military. I made no attempt to estimate how many survived the military. From the latest comment, I guess they took a lot better care of them than all the Topcon Super D's they bought and beat to hell. Still, I'm sure they didn't all survive, so they are a darned rare camera. However, a lot of the price has to do with them being Leicas. Topcon lenses of which only 500 were produced don't fetch 5 figures (barely 4 in most cases). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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