Wild M400 on ebay.de

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g4lab
Posts: 1437
Joined: Fri May 23, 2008 11:07 am

Wild M400 on ebay.de

Post by g4lab »

Here is a Wild M400 outfit on ebay.de

The seller says pickup only, but then seems to say shipping could be arranged for money. I have no connection to the seller.

The M400 is a wonderful unit. The one in the auction has a 4x5 camera back on it which is easily removable, by a thumbscrew.
You then can adapt it for DSLR use.
There are three or four ways to accomplish this and they will cost additional money. But when you are done you have something very wonderful.

They stopped making the M400 because it was too expensive to build.
In 1977 the lab I worked at bought one for $17,000 dollars very similar to the one in the auction.

Be prepared to bid (snipe) about $1500 for it.

If someone in the US is interested in one of these I know a fellow in Texas who is moving to smaller quarters and would like to sell one , mounted on an Aristophot stand for about $1600 which is what he paid for it. ( I pointed him to it on ebay.)

NikonUser
Posts: 2693
Joined: Thu Sep 04, 2008 2:03 am
Location: southern New Brunswick, Canada

Post by NikonUser »

There's one on ebay.ca for $15,000.
SEE HERE

Is the Texas one a misprint, $16,000 rather than $1,600 ?
If not, why so cheap?
NU.
student of entomology
Quote – Holmes on ‘Entomology’
” I suppose you are an entomologist ? “
” Not quite so ambitious as that, sir. I should like to put my eyes on the individual entitled to that name.
No man can be truly called an entomologist,
sir; the subject is too vast for any single human intelligence to grasp.”
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr
The Poet at the Breakfast Table.

Nikon camera, lenses and objectives
Olympus microscope and objectives

g4lab
Posts: 1437
Joined: Fri May 23, 2008 11:07 am

Post by g4lab »

The $15K one is from a camera dealer in South Africa who has been trying to get that price for over a year maybe three. It won't ever happen.

The only reason I can think of, that these don't bring much more money, is that there were so few of them sold , that most people have never heard of them.

I have been watching them rather diligently for about ten years. The most I have ever seen one bring is about $3,700 for one, that had the APO objective and a bright dark field base and was already converted for digital photography.

They are my favorite of all optical instruments. The camera controller is very accurate exposure wise. Using the one I worked with thirty years ago, I pretty much stopped bracketing exposures on pictures of orthopedic specimens. It came to seem like a waste of film. :D

The Texas one is not a misprint. If it is of interest you can send me a pm and I will put you in touch with the guy. He is a friendly acquaintance from another forum.

Peter M. Macdonald
Posts: 187
Joined: Tue Jan 20, 2009 2:59 pm
Location: Berwickshire, Scotland

Post by Peter M. Macdonald »

$1,600 is a good price for one of these if it comes with the trinocular head and is in good condition. I paid $2,500 for mine from http://www.arcmicrooptics.com/. At least it was a couple of years back when the $/£ was more in favour of us here in Britain.

Leitz went on to manufacture these until not very long ago. Many of the accessories are still available from them. They even use the same part numbers as were used by Wild/Wild Heerbrugg, only the logo was changed. I can heartily recommend these for photography. A pleasure to use something which was obviously engineered to a standard and not to a price.

Peter

g4lab
Posts: 1437
Joined: Fri May 23, 2008 11:07 am

Post by g4lab »

Arc microoptics is a pretty reasonably priced dealer. Many dealers will charge much more for an M400 series scope.

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