I meant the other way round John, where did n-Ikon come from. Some Japanese companies were named after western companies such as JVC = Japanese Victor Company.

LATER:

Just looked it up and I was right I don't know why it took me 50 years to notice

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_does_Nikon_mean

The word Kogaku just means factory as far as I know.

That also clears up how you pronounce it n ikon
Not Nik on

I think you'll see some pics from it on the US forum. Nice to see
that it's being used on a Pentax and not adapted to CanIkon.... Just
noticed Nikon is n-Ikon similar to Zeiss Ikon who were there main
competitor when they made rangefinders.... wonder if that's were
it came from?

Just looked on the site Mike-P gave and he's being careful not to
mention the price. If it was 3000 Euro it was at least half of
what it's worth.

and then have to find the money for a replacement on top of the £130 already paid out.

You were lucky Father Ted, but the *ist range do seem very reliable.
I had a *istDS for years.

I know someone who was buying a SH K10D and I advised him to get the NEW K-x, but he bought the K10D and 4 months later he's deciding whether to pay out £170+ on repairs or buy a K-x

You have to weigh up the odds and what you can afford to lose when buying anything SH. A friend of mine used to always buy cheap heavily depreciated luxury cars rather than new, because he viewed them as disposable. No one else wanted them because repairs and parts cost a small fortune but he bought them with the intention of scrapping them if there was a serious fault. In 25 years I think he only scrapped one and saved a fortune on depreciation. He now buys fairly mundane/basic cars NEW because you become less of a gambler as you get older and want the security of a warranty.

Nearly all QC nowdays is done on a statistical basis with set confidence limits. It actually saves money because they weigh up how long the product's going to last and reduce the quality if it's going to last too long. They also weigh up what percentage is acceptable for returns. Cheaper product more retrurns.

A lot of the QA has been transferred to the people actually building the item or overseeing the process so that less inspectors are needed and it gets the production people more interested in what they are building.

Some highly automated factories have just one man and a dog.... the dogs there so that the man can't destroy the plant

I personally would have gone for the K-x (and I have a K20D)
The high ISO performance is more important to me than the bells
and whistles I can't really use the K20D above 400ISO

Off Topic round here Gary

Any idea how much it went for Stefan?

Like they said on the US forum there are more Rembrant's in the World that those lenses

A few years ago SH electronic goods used to go for low prices, because they were unreliable and expensive to repair. Items such as HDD Video recorders, washing machines, probably do still sell for low prices.

The SH DSLR buyers are unbelievably dumb SH (or even new)DSLR's are unreliable and usually £200+ to repair. New ones come with a guarantee, so they are safe buys yet someone will buy a SH one for say £70 below the new price... say £500 and it will break down about 3 months later and they will be moaning that they have to shell out £250 for repairs and how it was boxed and looked new when they bought it

It's different with mechanical/film cameras or lenses they rarely go wrong.

Unless your the biggest gambler in the country always buy NEW DSLR's If you can't afford one you can't afford the repair costs either

I never take out Extended Guarantee's but with DSLR's it might just be worth it.