Where to Sell a 5D Mark II

lennon33x · Apr 16, 2015

I've posted on Facebook groups, eBay, TPF and Craigslist, and I'm having a pretty difficult time trying to sell my 5D Mark II. Besides taking a massive hit selling through B&H or Adorama, anyone know of any other avenues to sell it?

ronlane · Apr 16, 2015

The Smarter Way to Buy and Sell New Used Cameras Canon Nikon Hasselblad Leica More - KEH Camera

lennon33x · Apr 16, 2015

Tried them too. They're a little bit lower than B&H

Scuba · Apr 16, 2015

I would say if no one is interested the price is probably too high. What are you pricing it at?

lennon33x · Apr 16, 2015

$1000.

35381 on the shutter. Minimal blemishes. Throwing in shipping, PayPal and also CF cards. Really don't know why it won't move.

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Scuba · Apr 16, 2015

Yeah that is a decent price. I just bought mine for $900 body only with 8k on the shutter, but that was from a friend locally. Have you had it listed long?

lennon33x · Apr 16, 2015

About a week. Listed for 5 days on eBay with no movement. I'm updating the post and bumping them regularly.

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Scuba · Apr 16, 2015

I would say it may take a little longer then a week to move at $1000. It is a fair price I would just give it time. I would say you probably have to lower the price more to move it faster.

lennon33x · Apr 16, 2015

Appreciate it.

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KmH · Dec 9, 2016

$999.99
It's amazing how much more appealing a price just $0.01 lower can be.
Sellers have known that for a long time.
Sellers of used stuff know too that a week isn't all that long a time.
And also mentioned is that you have to price what you're selling according to how quickly you need to sell.
If you can wait for a buyer you can set your asking price higher than if you need to sell your stuff quick.

Also, the demand for DSLRs, new and used, has diminished over the last 2 years, and you're selling soon after Black Friday when a lot of people in the new DSLR market took advantage of the lower prices.

TCampbell · Dec 16, 2016

I think you're asking price is high. Put yourself in the "buyers" situation. If they have $1000 to spend... what should they buy?

If you price shop the 5D II (because I also had one to sell and that's exactly what I did) you'll find that most of them seem to be going for roughly right around $750. You'll find most tend to be priced within roughly $100 of that price.

I found some interesting things... if it's just the camera body, you'd be expected to have absolutely everything (including the box the camera came in) and the body had better look "new" if you expect to charge near the top price (and that maybe gets you to $850).

I also noticed that while a "high" shutter count might hurt the price, having a "low" shutter count doesn't necessarily help the price. In other words if your camera had 5000 clicks and someone else's had 10,000 clicks the *actual* number of clicks probably isn't too critical. Most consumers don't know about shutter count. On the other hand, if your camera had 200,000 clicks... that would probably hurt the value (but the camera would also probably "look" like it had been used enough to do 200,000 clicks so that'd hurt the value as well.)

I also found that accessories don't count for much. For example, my camera had the Canon battery grip (Canon brand - not a 3rd party). While those grips sell "new" for around $250-300... the grip might only help bump up the camera's price by about $50. People who "know" about grips might want one, but most people who are shopping for "used" gear because they either don't want or can't afford a "new" camera are the same people who are not going to pay a premium for accessories. The accessories wont do much to increase the price but they might sway a buy who has a choice of two cameras at nearly the same price to go with yours because the accessories sweeten the deal.

You might be thinking... "Hey, these cameras sell at the large camera stores for $1000." and yes... they do... but consumers are more willing to pay a little more at a big name store than they are willing to give to a private seller.

If I'm shopping eBay or Craigslist, I'm looking for DEALS... I'm definitely NOT looking to pay as much as I could pay by just going to B&H, Adorama, or KEH. You will never be able to charge (as a private seller) what a big-name store can charge for the same product. The big name stores pretty much guarantee that the condition of the used product is accurately represented... and that's something you definitely do not get from eBay or Craigslist.

So yes... I think you're asking too much.

I found that my own 5D II camera, in it's condition, would have netted me about $700 (tops) in trade in value (some places only wanted to offer me closer to $500) for my camera body which based on their rules for scrutinizing the condition of the product would have put it in the like-new category.

So in my situation, I considered options...

I could re-purpose the camera by doing a conversion to make it an InfraRed camera. I also considered re-puposing it for astrophotography by doing a full-spectrum mod. But as I already have a nice dedicated astrophotography camera and I while I felt IR photography might be "fun", I also felt it might be "limited" (how often am I really going to use that?) So I nixed those ideas.

I also considered maybe just finding a school with a camera club and donating it -- I could take the tax write-off for fair market value. Yes, the tax benefit is worth a lot less than I could by selling it to a private party... but I'd have some satisfaction in knowing that it would be used by lots of people and for education.

In the end, one of my friends just happened to mention to my spouse that he had a 7D (original) and was thinking he wanted a full-frame body, but he wanted to find a "used" camera (even his 7D was a used camera). So I hooked him up with a deal on it by basically selling it for a price that was halfway between trade-in value and private-seller value. He got a deal by paying less then he'd pay elsewhere, and I got a tiny bit more than I'd have got in trade -- we both win and I don't have to deal with the hassles of eBay and Craigslist (and not having to deal with eBay and Craigslist ads and sellers is "worth" something to me.)

goodguy · Dec 17, 2016

I sold my Nikon D7100 about 2 years ago, has same shutter count and the moment people heard it they simply walked away.
So while we both know 36K isn't much for the average user it sounds like too much, that's my experience anyways.
I had to take a big hit in pocket to sell it, looking back today I should have kept it.

zombiesniper · Dec 17, 2016

I think after a year and a half if the OP hasn't come up with a way to sell it, it was meant to be and should keep it.

cataldo-images · Jan 23, 2017

I think you may be a tad high on your price. I just bought a used 5D mkii with 19,621 on the shutter in really good shape for 800 dollars. The only thing it needed was a rear LCD plastic cover because it was cracked and I bought that on Ebay for 9.99.

As a side note it was the best 800 dollars I have spent on gear in a long time. I can't figure out why I waited 5 years to make the jump to full frame.