RE: Nishika Cameras

[P3D John W Roberts <roberts@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

>Date: Tue, 11 Mar 1997 22:34:16 -0600
>From: P3D Michael Kersenbrock <michaelk@xxxxxxxxxxx>
>Subject: RE: Nishika Cameras 

[Greg W]
>> You make my point for me.  The camera's intrinsic value hasn't changed.
>> It still takes excellent stereo pictures.  Only its market value has
>> changed, due to outside forces.

>I've always been talking about market value.  That's the only one
>with a monetary association.

It looks like there may be some convergence on the idea of market value,
but I'm still skeptical on the usefulness of the idea of "intrinsic value"
which Greg W. has been describing.

Here's a list of what appear to me to be the assumptions within the concept
of "intrinsic value", and the concerns I have with some of them. This is
from Greg's posts on Monday and Tuesday - the relevant quotes will be furnished
if requested. Perhaps Greg would be willing to clarify if I don't accurately 
represent his views:
 - Aside from issues of market value, every stereo camera has associated with
     it a parameter called "intrinsic value".
 - Intrinsic value, at least ideally, is a function only of how good a camera
     is for taking stereo pictures.
 - Intrinsic value is directly expressable in US dollars (or Swiss francs,
     or whatever). [This implies that all intelligent and well-informed
     people should essentially agree with one another on the picture-taking
     merits of a particular camera, and on the dollar value of such merits -
     I consider this unlikely.]
 - Intrinsic value is linearly proportional to measurable picture-taking
     qualities. [*Market prices* in the camera market have traditionally
     been highly nonlinear - people will pay large amounts of additional
     money for a slight improvement in performance, and they will accept
     a slight decrease in performance only with a large price cut. It's
     all very well to say that intrinsic value has nothing to do with
     market value, but if it's in almost every case a substantially different
     mathematical function than market value, and is therefore highly
     unrepresentative of what people are willing to pay for a camera
     based just on performance, then what good is it as a measure?]

Greg also mentioned that appraisers determine the VALUE of a thing, without
specifying whether this is market value or intrinsic value. The third
characteristic above implies that this could be applied to intrinsic value.
If we apply this across different camera lines, then we come to the conclusion
that a FED is 1.2 times as good for taking stereo pictures as a Realist,
which is 1.7 times as good for taking pictures as a Kodak, which is 0.9
times as good for taking pictures as a Viewmaster camera (or whatever the
numbers are), and different people will be very close in their relative
valuations. I just don't see how everybody's going to agree on these things.

Also a question of terminology - when I think of the word "value", I include
the intangibles - things that don't easily lend themselves to a dollar rating.
If asked "do you value your kids?" most parents would say "sure!". If asked
"how many dollars is this kid worth, and how much are the others relative
to this one, rounded to the nearest decimal?", most parents would have trouble
coming up with the requested numbers. If this "intrinsic value" idea is
very different from the more abstract concept of value, there's grounds for
confusion. Perhaps a different term could be chosen?

I think Greg has some interesting ideas here, but I'm not convinced that
this "intrinsic value" idea holds together as a coherent whole.

John R


------------------------------