WOT??

Oxfam have a Takumar 500mm f5 prime telephoto they are trying to sell....£800.... for a fifty year old (plus), two foot length of droopy old drain-pipe with a bit of glass at each end

I wouldn't even bid £30 for it on ebay...tell me they are joking

Just had a look - maybe it's valuable to a collector but........!!
WOT a load of money - think what modern lenses one could buy for £800.

especially as there is a 500mm Tak on ebay at the mo' currently at less than £90

OMG

I notice that a lot of Oxfam stuff ends up on Ebay, these days.
Maybe they just don't have anyone who can value this sort of kit properly.
In one of our local charity shops, a few years back, there was a 135/f3.5 tele lens by one of the not-very-distinguished makers at £39.95. I looked at it, saw it was a K-mount, and put it back. The assistant did ask if I was interested, and I said yes - if the price was reduced by about £30.

The comment was that the price had been set by "our valuer". This could be why the lens sat in the showcase for the next six months.

In the US, the Goodwill Industries chain of Thrift Shops operate their own auctions.
Geoff

Yes they do have valuers, but I suspect they're suffering from the difference between value and market prices. That 500mm Takumar is pretty rare but it isn't worth more than a new DA* 50-135mm! Apparently they aren't keen on ebaying stuff as they lose money to listing fees and Paypal.

I ended up valuing a load of old kit for the local branch a few days ago, it had been accumulating for a couple of years and the manager didn't want to chuck it as she thought it might well be worth at least a few quid. I reckoned the whole lot would probably make £80-£90 locally (£5 here, £10 there as it were) at sane prices which might hopefully tempt buyers.

Nobody is likely to walk into a charity shop and pay £40 for a lens. They might well hazard a tenner.

If there had been anything genuinely rare I would have advised them to ebay it instead, but it was mostly generic lenses and low-end camera bodies. I did value the two Pentaxes at ebay levels but only because they both had faults and "spares or repair" lots tend to be very low-priced. I hope the balky SV with dented 55/1.8 finds a buyer able to restore it, I ended up bringing the ME Super with a mouldy 50/1.7 home in exchange for a donation and my time valuing the rest. I've since cleaned it out and replaced the grotty panels with a spare set of black ones, it doesn't look half bad now and I'd call it a fair deal.

Most charity shops now have experienced valuers, hence the reason that a photographic bargain is becoming increasingly rare.

My wife hates shopping but loves charity shops, of course I have to accompany her so I can browse the books and search for that elusive photographic bargain, so we have virtually done every charity going and I have to say that we find Oxfam very expensive, this is quickly followed by the Heart Foundation and then Cancer Research, although I have to admit the later two are my favoured charities and I dont mind paying to support them.

Thing is though, is an "expert valuer" really worth anything if they can't follow market prices? I'd say not. There's no point in having your price guidebook which says a lens is worth £xxx when the same lenses change hands on ebay daily for £xx. Charity shops aren't exactly in a position to accept returns or provide the services which a camera shop would in order to justify their prices either.

Dealers charge those prices in order to cover their overheads as well as buying the stock in the first place - they may well have had to clean, service or repair the item after taking it in P/Ex.

I think it's quite possible that somebody will buy it at that price, whether it's worth it or not.

The 18 blade round iris has surely got to produce beautiful bokeh.