Evidence before a price.
This is a camera and lens market reference for all brands, film and digital. A catalog entry proves that an identity has been documented. It does not establish a market value.
What is live
The shared Light Cabinet catalog across all brands, 163 detailed Pentax K reference entries, alias-aware search, conservative title matching, separate finish and kit comparison cells, reviewed sale imports, dated currency conversion, valuation snapshots, private watches, and an owner review desk.
Not connected: automatic sold-data or dealer feeds, recurring source jobs, email/push delivery. Prices will remain empty until verified observations are imported and reviewed. Existing lens-watch targets have not been supplied. Ten real-market spot checks are still pending; test fixtures do not establish real-market accuracy.
The market value
- Start with reviewed completed sales from the last 90 days for the exact identity, configuration, finish and condition.
- Deduplicate by source and transaction ID. Bundles, unconfirmed finishes, mismatched mounts, unresolved conditions and missing FX evidence do not qualify.
- Sort USD prices. With at least four observations, calculate linearly interpolated first and third quartiles, then exclude prices outside Q1 − 1.5×IQR and Q3 + 1.5×IQR. Owners may separately exclude suspicious evidence with a recorded reason. An outlier is not automatically proof of fraud.
- Count the remaining observations. At least 30 is strong; 10–29 is fair. Publish their median as estimated market value. With 3–9, show only the observed range and thin confidence. With 0–2, show no price.
Confidence describes coverage under these rules, not a guarantee about hidden defects or the population of all sales. Thin windows are not widened automatically. Dealer asking prices and review-site averages never enter the sold-price median.
Keep the exact item straight
F, FA, A and M lenses are distinct series. Optical revisions, coatings, macro/soft-focus variants and star lenses need separate identities. Regional body names can refer to one identity; optical or mechanical differences cannot be dismissed as aliases.
Body-only, lens-only and each documented kit are separate cells. Black and silver are never pooled. Generic finish choices do not assert that every model shipped in those colors. Unknown finishes remain in review. Matching confidence is an identity suggestion, not sale verification; the owner verifies each imported price.
Condition is part of the price
| Grade | Interpretation |
|---|---|
| Mint | Like-new cosmetic condition; still verify function. |
| Excellent | Light use, no material functional fault disclosed. |
| Good | Normal wear; usable, with defects recorded. |
| Fair | Heavy wear or disclosed imperfections; function needs explicit review. |
| Parts | Nonfunctional, for-parts or untested. Untested means unknown, not confirmed broken. |
The original seller grade is retained. KEH LN/LN− maps to Mint, EX+/EX to Excellent, EX−/BGN to Good, UG to Fair pending defect review, and AI to Parts. MPB “Heavily used” is a cosmetic grade and does not by itself mean broken. Source grades never substitute for a function check. Fungus, haze, shutter faults, missing parts and repair history belong in the review decision.
Currency and the price you pay
All comparisons use USD. Preserve the original amount and currency. Non-USD observations require the transaction-date Frankfurter reference rate, or the preceding available business day within seven days. Each conversion records the dated response and source. A weekly current rate is never substituted for a historical transaction.
Shipping, tax, duties and repairs are excluded from the median and deal ratio. The optional all-in budget adds these separately. No forecast of appreciation or future resale value is made.
Deal bands
Divide the asking price by the qualifying sold median: ≤75% Great deal; ≤90% Good deal; ≤105% Fair; ≤125% High; above 125% Overpriced. Without a median, there is no score. Condition and seller evidence outrank the ratio.
Provenance and history
Price observations and valuation snapshots are append-only. Corrections are separately recorded and audited; original evidence is retained. A snapshot records its rule version, time window, included sale IDs and statistical exclusions. History displays actual recorded points for the last 12 months; it neither invents earlier prices nor draws a line across missing periods.
Asking-price observations older than 14 days are hidden. Source outages must leave previous evidence intact; a failed fetch is not a zero price. Watches compare reviewed matching listings and record target alerts and drops of at least 15%. Alerts are private and stay in the site.
Sources and operating limits
The initial model register draws on the PentaxForums lens reference, camera reference, and Ricoh/Pentax manuals. Their price averages are not imported as transactions.
Automated marketplace acquisition needs permitted source access. eBay sold-data access is restricted; an active-listing API cannot substitute for completed sales. The desk accepts authorized records with source links, factual titles and transaction details, not copied articles or rehosted photographs.
Imports are capped at 100 records per request. The pilot uses bounded review batches and manual recomputation. Larger production ingestion, scheduled provider checks, weekly digests, monthly catalog audits and canonical merge tooling remain planned. There is no marketplace checkout, urgency messaging or affiliate influence on valuations.