I think we keep these cameras and try to keep them working to honor the legions of faceless factorymen who built them (see the photo on
Mark Hama’s Homepage). Who will ever care about a A7rll?
My AP, K and S are in working order. I bought a Tower 22 and Tower 23 from Fred Sherfy last year. They’re both working, though the 22 needs speeds adjusted.
Part of the problem is the small number of some of these cameras initially built. K2DMD’s are similar - so few were built there aren’t many good ones left for sale.
There were fewer than
11,000 19,600 AP’s and 21,000 K’s (both one year runs) but there were something like 481,000 SV’s. I think the S was a very short run and there may be fewer of those than the AP (
van Oosten says <5,000 S). Read
this article by Frank Mechelhoff. There’s a table if you scroll down.
I think the good stuff is out there but it’s all put away, like Shelby Cobras. I can name at least ten members of this Forum who have working 50’s Pentaxes, but none of us is selling. You just have to be patient, and discerning in your purchases.
They’re old! Sometimes the 50’s lenses are so dried up they break when taken apart to grease the helicoid (has happened twice to Eric when servicing my lenses).