Manual Lens Have the prices of Nikkor 35mm f1.8 LTM lenses gone insane?

M. Valdemar

M. Valdemar

Top Veteran
Location
New York City
I have three of these lenses, pristine. I have not priced them recently. I also have a LTM Nikkor 85mm f1.5 too.

I cannot find any listings for these lenses. I see one 35mm 1.8 with an asking price of $7500 on eBay. I see some sold 85mm 1.5's for over $3500.

Are these the going rates now? I know lens prices for certain lenses are nuts, but are they this high or only wishful thinking?
 
The movie industry is driving the price of vintage lenses up, to insane levels. Often the glass is taken out of the mounts and rehoused.

I suspect this is temp- cash in, wait a few years, buy back.

I paid for a Semester of College with $19 of silver coins thanks to the Hunt Brothers, then bought back at $2 per ounce a few years later.
 
M. Valdemar said:
I have three of these lenses, pristine. I have not priced them recently. I also have a LTM Nikkor 85mm f1.5 too.

I cannot find any listings for these lenses. I see one 35mm 1.8 with an asking price of $7500 on eBay. I see some sold 85mm 1.5's for over $3500.

Are these the going rates now? I know lens prices for certain lenses are nuts, but are they this high or only wishful thinking?
Click to expand...
Doesn't currently seem to be worth it buying a Nikkor 35mm F1.8 LTM (if you're a user as opposed to a collector), I've just seen one going for four thousand pounds and you can get some great Leica lenses for much less cash. Plenty of Nikkor 35mm F2.5 LTM lenses decently priced though. The Nikkor 28mm F3.5 seems to be slowly rising in asking price too, that looks like a good 'un.
 
These prices are crazy. I didn't think of what Brian said about the movie industry, but it makes sense.

I'm probably sitting on a gold mine now, with my huge collection of rare lenses bought at cheap prices over the last 30 years.

The only thing crazier now seem to be Rolex prices. 10 years ago, for example, you could get a pristine 5513 Submariner for a couple of thousand dollars. Now they are hitting $25,000 or $30,000 for an ordinary stainless steel tool watch. It's madness.

Another case in point, about 6 years ago I won a judgement and decided to treat myself to a 1988 18K Gold Submariner. I had sold one years ago and regretted selling it, so I bought another one at market price and paid $11,000 for it. I considered it high, but I wanted it. The same watch is now selling for $35,000 and up.

The one thing I won't get sucked into is NFTs. This seems like a preposterous sinkhole for suckers. You essentially buy a tiny jpg of a funny looking ape for $500,000. :ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl:

PS: Something like 10 years ago, I bought 10,000 Bitcoins for some overseas transactions. They cost pennies. I didn't think twice about holding on to them. I bought them, made my purchases and got rid of them. If I had kept them I would be waving to Steve Job's widow from the deck of my yacht. Not even worth kicking myself over. Who could even conceive of the prices Bitcoin is now? You would be considered a lunatic if you predicted these current prices.
 
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M. Valdemar said:
The one thing I won't get sucked into is NFTs. This seems like a preposterous sinkhole for suckers. You essentially buy a tiny jpg of a funny looking ape for $500,000. :ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl:
Click to expand...
I'm not an expert at that (and nor I suspect are most people!), but the usual things seem to apply, ie:

1) As with those people who play the fruit machine pokies or bet on sports, you'll only ever hear about the 'wins', never the losses; and
2) These things are hugely dependent upon garnering lots and lots of people to chip in. Which is why you see and will continue to see loads and loads of publicity/ advertising for these NFTs or whatever they're called.

Already, a "Fan Token" scheme which has partnered up with a number of European soccer clubs is experiencing serious difficulties paying its dues with the "Tokens" plummeting in value since their launch. The F1 team Mclaren has also bailed out a contract with the same token provider.

As with everything else, only chip in what you can afford to lose, otherwise....etc etc.

Anyway - back to the manual lenses!
 
M. Valdemar said:
I have three of these lenses, pristine. I have not priced them recently. I also have a LTM Nikkor 85mm f1.5 too.

I cannot find any listings for these lenses. I see one 35mm 1.8 with an asking price of $7500 on eBay. I see some sold 85mm 1.5's for over $3500.

Are these the going rates now? I know lens prices for certain lenses are nuts, but are they this high or only wishful thinking?
Click to expand...

The going rates for the 35/1.8 are not that high. See for example here Nikon W-NIKKOR 3.5cm f1.8 35/1.8 LTM m39 Leica Mount Free DHL 3-5 Tage | eBay. The original listing was for 5500 USD but it didn't sell. Then another one for a fixed price of 5000 USD. Didn't sell either. Then allowed the possibility to propose a lower price and finally it sold after more than a month on eBay. And it seemed a very nice copy.

So, I'd say that the actual price for which they go is much lower than your estimate
 

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