Anybody buy any Leica Books or Nocts lately?

[kelly_flanigan1]

<p>While trolling the bay tonight for Angulons, Brownie Bullets; Hit Cameras; Graflexs; and Zorkis :)<br>

plus ; Leica lenses;</p>

<p>I stumbled upon a book going for 475 bucks. ; heck this MUST be a typo!</p>

<p>Thinking this was NUTS I did a search for the book and found 5; from 475 to 1385 bucks.</p>

<p>This seems really wacky; since mine cost about 45 bucks new on the bay eons ago after the price dropped</p>

<p>The cheapest one cost more than my used Noct in 1978!</p>

<p>Leica Lens Compendium by Erwin Puts</p>

<p>Anybody buy any Leica Books or Nocts lately?</p>

[robert_hooper1]

<p>I have the three James L Lager Illustrated Guides, I, II & III, the Leica Product Directory "50", and the Dennis Laney Leica Collectors Guide. Do those count?</p>

<p>I have an Erwin Puts 223 page Leica lens book in PDF provided by a kind photo.net patron, but I don't know if it is the same thing as his compendium, because the title page is missing.</p>

<p>Here is the Compendium on <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Leica-Lens-Compendium-Erwin-Puts/dp/189780217X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1271657841&sr=8-1">Amazon.com</a>. Looks like $475 is cheap!</p>

[robert_hooper1]

<p>A <a href="http://www.imx.nl/photo/downloads/page70.html">new edition</a> will be available soon. Save your money. Don't pay a crazy price for the old edition.</p>

[paul_neuthaler]

<p>Buy mine for $350</p>

[carbon_dragon]

<p>I've got this book. I don't understand the price range. It's quite a good book though, especially if you like highly detailed descriptions of the test results of various versions of the Leica lenses. A lot of it was over my head.</p>

[tom_burke3]

<p>I think the 'new edition available soon' page has been on M. Puts' site for quite some time.</p>

[john_boyle3]

<p>The 1990's books by Brian Bower have also got very high prices. I have four of them which were bought new at very reasonable prices. Good books, but not to everyone's liking.</p>

[christopher_a._junker1]

<p>The early Morgan and Lester Leica Manuals are a nice library edition, especially the pre WWII editions. They are a quality book with good illustrations. Tough to find them with a dust cover though.</p>

[james_kennedy9]

<p>I just found a Morgan and Morgan Leica manual and data book, 1956, for $10. No dust jacket, but the book and pages are LN. I have about 15 of these, one or two with dust jackets and I have never paid more $10 for any. They change at glacial speed, so you really don't need every year. I have at least one that is pre WW2. I tend to snap up most anything that has Leica on it, within reason. We have some great used book stores in the Seattle area. My problem is that I end up with quite a few dupes. I picked up a M6 2nd ed book a few weeks ago and now have two of the same book (maybe three). It was LN and sold for $6.95.</p>

[robert_hooper1]

<p>Christopher is right about the Morgan and Lester Leica Manuals and they can be had very reasonably on eBay. The pre-war versions are very interesting from a political point of view as well, in my opinion. The text and some of the photos are ever so slightly influnced by Nationalsozialismus idiology.</p>

[paul_neuthaler]

<p>try to get the three large paperback series from the 70's by James Lager. They prefigure his 1990's hardcover set and contain much of the material he put in the later volumes.</p>

[robert_hooper1]

<p>Leica Collectors plus limited source equals high prices, sometimes obscene. I always check out used book stores for any undiscovered treasures.</p>

[john_boyle3]

<p>Paul, I have those three Lager books which were purchased new (no, they are not for sale). I would think that many members of LHSA also have them. Some of these current prices are just not rational.</p>

[malcolm_smith6]

<p>Are these pdfs of any interest? It is legal to download these two pre-war Leica Manuals</p>

<p>http://www.archive.org/search.php?query=leica%20AND%20collection%3Auniversallibrary</p>

 

[SolaresLarrave]

Recently, I was fortunate enough to lay my dirty paws on the second Sartorius guide: the one for Leica cameras. I have his book on Leica lenses, and despite the fact that it contains a couple of inconsistencies (lists one hood for the first Summilux version in the text and another in the final table), they are fairly informative and entertaining. The one on camera bodies ends with the M6... so, without all the lore on the M6TTL, M7 and MP some could call it outdated. But then, it has nice sections on all the previous Leica bodies, and also on the military models (both LTM and M).

 

I think it came about a week ago...

[colin_elliott]

<p>"Here is the Compendium on Amazon.com"</p>

<p>They <strong>still</strong> have them ...................maybe it's because of the ridiculous price they are asking.</p>

[lex_bosman1]

<p>I only bought a reprint of the Leica Buch by Theo Kisselbach, for a normal price. The Eastland Leica M Compendium and a book by Bower and the one of Osterloh I bought severl years ago for normal prices. This increase has started several months ago, I think, and I don't really understand it. I have three pdf-books by Erwin Puts, so let me know if you want me to upload them.<br>

Lex</p>

[astral]

<p>In Britain, the used book trade would rather sit on a worm-eaten, crumbling, fungus infested pile of books "worth" a million roubles (etc) than sell them for a realistic price to interested, money-in-hand customers. Hyper-inflation of the cost of interesting and useful books to ridiculous prices is largely the work of "<em><a href="http://www.inprint.co.uk/thebookguide/bookfairies.htm">Bookfairies</a></em>".</p>

<p>I work in the book trade - all too often the antics of specialist dealers and even the thrift/charity shops leave me speechless. In the UK,<em> <a href="http://www.inprint.co.uk/thebookguide/drif.htm">Drif's Guide</a></em> was a very critical and idiosyncratic look at the used book trade - ironically the guide itself has now become an overpriced "collector's item", even though it is venomously reviled by Bookfairies and most specialist and antiquarian booksellers. With the widespread demise of the used book trade in the UK, Bookfairies have now muscled-in on the thrift/charity shop business: that's why you rarely find a really decent bargain there any more.</p>

<p>The <em>British National Repository of Collectors' Books and Other Overpriced Publications</em> is at <a href="http://www.hay-on-wye.co.uk/bookshops/default.asp">Hay-on-Wye</a> - well worth a detour ..... to somewhere more interesting (in my <em>low </em>opinion). Expect to see many Bookfairies in Hay, especially during the breeding - oops <em><strong>Festival </strong></em>season.</p>

<p>Based on comparable reprint costs that I/we have to pay, a 1000 'limited edition' reprint of - say - the Leica Lens Compendium (unamended) could probably be produced for about £18 per copy, maximum; including hardback cover and dust jacket. This disregards royalties, etc. Even allowing for a c.200% gross profit margin, the retail price could be around £55-60. In my business 200% mark-up is considered extortionate.</p>