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The price of a Minolta 35mm slr with lens (Maxxum HTsi, model no. 95804149) is given as 99 USD on Amazon. But I have seen people asking for almost as much (or even more) for a used one. They argue that their camera was made in Japan and not China, and claim that there is a difference in make and hence the quality, so they want to ask for more.

Is this justified? is there really any difference?

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I hardly believe that this camera is still in production, so the "new" camera is probably a new old stock one. Hence I wouldn't consider this $99 as the list price.

If the sellers can convince the buyers that the Japanese one is better than the Chinese (it's not really important if it's true or not) then the price of the Japanese will be higher. If they can't do that the price will be the same.

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There is no such things as "should" here. "Should" indicates you feel that you're the one who should determined the business policy and pricing of the companies involved rather than the companies themselves doing so.
If you feel there's no additional value in the Japanese built camera, go ahead and buy the cheaper Chinese model. Enough people (including the manufacturer apparently, else they'd not have 2 separate production lines like that) think different.

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  • \$\begingroup\$ I did not mean to assume anything. I know that workmanship matters. I just wanted to know how much it matters when it cameras. (Eg. it matters almost zero when it comes to computer chips ..) I wanted to know the degree to which the workmanship and quality of parts matters in (film)cameras . sorry I pissed you off. \$\endgroup\$
    – Chani
    Jan 30, 2013 at 13:50
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In such case you should take 2 thinks under consideration:

  • labor cost (which is higher in Japan than in China)
  • quality and workmanship and components used in manufacturing

Since workmanship may not count so much, so components used in process may. In simple words it may be any issue that Chinese manufacturer used lower quality (=cheaper) components, while Japanese higher.... but it is not always true, because sometimes new components may be cheaper and have better quality at the same time: due to progress, found&solved problems with old one - produced in Japan f.ex... etc.

You can be sure only that Japanese version cost more to produce (labor) but you cannot be sure about quality of components... but this you can check among owners on forums. Plus Chinese version has warranty (since it is new).

Don't worry if it will be produced in Norway used will cost 200 USD (at least) and anyway will be made of Chinese parts ;)

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