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Wondering if anyone has any insight on this...
I saw a DA* 50-135mm for a good price on Amazon. It was listed as Like new with "box damage" and sold from Amazon warehouse. I've bought box damaged items from Amazon warehouse before and they have arrived looking brand new, so I took a shot on this one.
The lens arrived today. It came in a the standard Ricoh grey box. It looked clean, but there was a bit of wear where the lens hood attaches and marks on the mounting ring. So it wasn't brand new, that's ok. The SDM works, and I've heard the newer DA* lenses have a better SDM mechanism than the earlier runs. So then I came here to check the serial number to see just how new it is. The serial number is 9111328! not only is it older, but it's already in the Serial number database and has an original date of May 2010!! (and it was second hand back then.) The Ricoh warranty card was blank for the model and for the serial number.
I have no idea how Amazon got a 11+ year old lens and it's in the newer ricoh grey box (I believe the lenses of that era still shipped in the Pentax green box).
Any ideas on this? Not sure if it has somehow been refurbished by Ricoh then resold through amazon, or if some other crazy thing has happened!