GET THE BE ST PRICE FOR USED GEAR
The market for used cameras remains buoyant, so how do you get the best price when you sell on your kit or part exchange? Geoff Harris shares some tips from top retailers
The market for second-hand cameras continues to grow steadily and it’s not hard to understand why. The past few years have seen a cost of living crisis and as photographers, our spending power is being squeezed as never before. Another factor is the quality of cameras and lenses released over the past decade: few genuinely ‘bad’ cameras have been released in the past few years. Let’s start at the beginning. Many specialist retailers will give you an initial free quote before you send in the gear for inspection. While it can be tempting to describe the condition as better than it actually is, in the hope that they’ll be too busy to check and will just cough up, the reality is that you’ll be fooling nobody. All equipment submitted for potential purchase or part exchange will be rigorously gone over by a specialist team, so check over what the definition of ‘as new’ actually means for that particular retailer.
‘When people log on to our site and request a quote, we always ask that they are as clear as possible in terms of condition,’ explains Jason Mitchell, from CameraWorld. ‘Sometimes people overstate the condition – for example we use the term “as new”. This means that the item has either never been used or has barely been used, is complete with box and supplied accessories in a condition you would not differentiate from new. We often get gear that has clearly been used and has marks etc, or no box. In these cases, we must reduce the price offered.’ This is backed up by Adrian Deary from London Camera Exchange (LCE). ‘We thoroughly check the equipment so we can confidently offer a warranty and reassure the customer buying our used equipment. We check the shutter count, the condition of the sensor and that all the buttons and operations are functioning as they should.’
Mould is a killer
As well as obvious major problems, such as faulty camera electronics or scratched sensors, all the retailers we spoke to also agreed that mould or fungus inside a lens makes it very difficult to accept it for purchase or part exchange. ‘We’re rather strict about mould and we will never intentionally re-sell any camera or lens showing any sign of mould growth,’ says Andy Lorton of MPB. ‘It’s usually caused by moisture entering the internal elements, often due to
