I ordered some used Nikon gear from KEH.com this week and I thought I’d mention how impressed with them I was. I should also mention that, of course, they nor anyone else is giving me anything for talking about their products and services. Odds are they don’t even know about it.
I ordered a Nikon TC-200 manual teleconverter and the Nikon 24-50mm zoom lens used from them. Both products were listed as ‘BGN’ or bargain quality according to their condition chart and both pieces look flawless.
The TC-200 is quite old as Nikon began making them on 1988. It’s basically a tube with some glass in it that doubles the focal length of a lens and make the lens one stop slower. If you attach a 50mm F/1.8 lens it becomes a 100mm F/4 lens ect. I don’t know how old this piece of hardware is but I expected it to look a little beat up when it arrived. The only issue I can see is a couple small scuffs on the very bottom where the tele-converter would meet the table if attached to a camera. It’s otherwise flawless. Glass is perfect with no dust and KEH listed this as 70-79% of original quality!
The second piece I got, the 24-50mm lens, is indistinguishable from new. I see no scuffs or marks of any kind on the plastic case or the glass.
I will never just buy new outright again, I will always check to see if KEH offers it used. The turn around was fast and though the website ordering process has some weird quirks I was able to place the order without any real trouble.