[lja]

Hello Pentax fans, would like your advice on my situation.

I have a LX kit (lenses, winder, focusing screen, flash) that I no longer use that I want to sell to make room. I was pleasantly surprised to find that people love this camera after all this time.

The LX has been serviced once a while ago for sticky mirror if I recall correctly..

I pulled it out last night and found that the shutter would not fire.. The mirror can be flipped up and down manually. This is in the upper speed range where the shutter is purely mechanical... The silver oxide batteries are still good after many years of storage.

Would it be better for me to get it fixed and then sell it or is it better to just sell it 'as is" and let the new enthusiast owner pursue the repair?

I saw all the posts about Eric... Thanks a lot, that's a potential resource for me.

[Cuthbert]

I would suggest to get it repaired if it's possible: a LX in not working condition can just be sold for scrap, a LX CLA'd from a reputable repairer like Eric is worth of some money.

[johnha]

I'd agree, get it repaired, but then you're likely to want to shoot it (well you'd have to test it)...

[dshombert]

I went through this a couple years back, and I agree that you should repair it. In my case, I didn't recover my initial investment plus the repair cost completely, but pretty close. Without the CLA, I wouldn't have gotten much for it. I had the CLA done by Eric and I think that helped - he is well known. It took awhile, he had to order parts from Japan, but it was worth the wait. And yes, it was hard to sell it after it came back all ready for action

[Dangermouse]

Get it serviced then sell it with the paperwork to prove that it has been done.

Having observed ebay LX listings for a while I think I'd either want to buy one with a recent receipt for servicing from a known specialist or, weirdly, buy a tidy one with a sticky mirror or jammed shutter cheaply as "spares or repair".

You could spend £150 or so on a working example with no evidence of servicing and have it lock up after six months, or spend £50 on one which needs repairing and put the saving towards the cost of a CLA. You'd come out ahead in the latter case, both financially and in having a camera you know will be reliable for the next decade or so. Unless the last owner attempted to force the controls after it locked up then it's not likely to need any new parts.

[lja]

Get it serviced then sell it with the paperwork to prove that it has been done.

Having observed ebay LX listings for a while I think I'd either want to buy one with a recent receipt for servicing from a known specialist or, weirdly, buy a tidy one with a sticky mirror or jammed shutter cheaply as "spares or repair".

You could spend £150 or so on a working example with no evidence of servicing and have it lock up after six months, or spend £50 on one which needs repairing and put the saving towards the cost of a CLA. You'd come out ahead in the latter case, both financially and in having a camera you know will be reliable for the next decade or so. Unless the last owner attempted to force the controls after it locked up then it's not likely to need any new parts.

Hi, thank you for your comments.. I wish I could come to this community and say that I'd like to fully restore this camera and happily shoot with it ever after but the reality of it is that my hard core photography days are over and I'm approaching this purely from a cold calculating business perspective. It sounds more attractive from a buyer's perspective to just buy a broken one that's cheap then and that seems to be the direction that I'm inclined to go towards... Just kinda tough luck for me that I don't have it working at a time that I'm thinking of selling it. I am the original owner btw, bought it back in 1980 right when it first came out... In fact I probably got one of the very earliest examples. Despite its age it is probably not very worn out since I was just a serious amateur, not a pro.