Those prices are about the same as they were selling for about 6 or 7 years ago. I remember when the 12x50SE was selling for $999.00 and at times it was listed at $1099.00. The 10x42 SE was selling for $899.00 up to $999.00 at times and the 8x32 was selling for $699.00 which was the highest price I ever saw it offered at. If it is priced higher than that now one could argue that the sellers are profiteering on a scarce commodity.
Factor inflation into the current prices and they are a bargain unless they are a mixture of old stock with older coatings and newer ones with newer coatings. That's a chance you will have to take. In any case, optically they all will be excellent binoculars.
Bob
There are always stores that sell bins at inflated prices or at the MSRP. How they manage to move their merchandize I have no idea. In some parts of the world, prices are always higher, so they ether buy them at a high price or buy on the gray market and perhaps pay an import tax and.or VAT.
However, historically, the SE prices were separated by about $100 each. The 12x50 SE typically sold for $799, the 10x42 SE for $699, and the 8x32 SE for $550-599. This was the trend for at about a decade with NYC camera dealers. Smaller stores priced them closer to the MRSP or higher, the prices you quoted above. There used to be a website that tracked price trends in sports optics. They even had bar graphs that showed the trends visually. Miss that website. I used to follow Nikon Sport Optics prices.
Then the tsunami hit in 2011, and prices on Nikon's Japanese-made optics went up across the board. In the case of the SE, it was a $100 increase. The 8x SE jumped to $679-$699, the 10x42 SE to $799, and the 12x50 SE to $899.
The time between back order arrivals grew longer. SE buyers were paying more and waiting longer to receive their SEs. Demand built, higher demand = higher prices.
I interpreted all this as impacts from the tsunami, which was very disruptive to some business sectors, but also to the fact that with only two out of 50 nuclear reactors running, the price of electricity, and therefore manufacturing, had increased.
So the discontinuation of the SE series comes as kind of shock since other factors could have easily explained the price increases, but also because how many times have we heard that the SEs were being discontinued only to find out that it was a false rumor based on some store that was out of stock and posted on their website that the SEs were "no longer available."
My concern going forward is what this will do to the price of SEs on the second hand market. Only one of my six SEs was bought new, my present 8x32 SE, the five others were bought "like new" second hand, all for under $600 including the two 12x50 SEs, one of which was cosmetically a bit worn (the serial number had been rubbed off) but was still excellent optically.
It's always been my dream to own all three models since each fills a niche, but I could only afford one at a time, although I did own the 8x 550xxx and the 10x 050xxx for about a year or so before I sold the 10x SE to buy a Nikon 8x30 EII BB, which I had to sell after the "Big Crunch" in January. I didn't even get to use it!
Right now, holding on to the 8x32 SE 550xxx is my goal, but others are on my Bucket List:
1. Back up 8x32 SE (551xxx)
2. 10x42 SE (050/051xxx)
3. 12x50 SE (350xxx).
Total cost???
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