Crisis of Soviet Photo Industry.

Probably it really existed in 80-th!
I found passport for FED-50.
Camera made in May 18, 1987.
Original price 90 rubels.
After few price reductions camera sold in August 30, 1988 for only 25 rubels.
What was going on at this time? As I can remember it always was hard to find good camera in the stores. Or may be FED-50 was not considered a good camera?


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Okynek,

Good question indeed ... Are you really sure, that the price written on your box is in Soviet roubles? The second thing - I can't remember if the bar-codes were already used in Soviet times ...


Best Regards,
Aidas

Hi Okynek,
I agree with Aidas. As far as I recall I have never seen bar coding on the packaging of any Soviet camera equipment. In addition Russian pricing labels in general clearly state "roubles", or at least an abbreviation. Again I can't recall ever seeing an official price tag without this information.

Regards,

Jim.

Well, surely it can be that this stickers was put on recently by second hand retailer, but many question raze if this is true:
Like second hand retailers usually put price on the camera, not on manuals. Stickers used are easy to take out and replace. In my case stickers permanently glued on. I was trying to see what is under the sticker and could not take top sticker off or ever lift it. You can see at list one more price sticker on the bottom. Camera surly was discounted at list few times.
I agreed about that barcodes was rather unusual for USSR, but not impossible. In Moscow, let say, barcodes in supermarkets used for many years.
Next arguments; if price is in foreign currency then it would also show which currency.
If sticker were put in 90-th it likely would have English letters then Russian. The biggest targets for such cameras were tourists.
If this camera sold in such stores like "Berezka" then price of the camera would be much bigger then $25, because officially in 1980th 1 ruble = $1.6 (or something like this).
Also sticker is pretty bit up for 90-th.
Of cause all of the above nether prove or deny notion about crisis of overproduction of cameras in USSR. We need more information.

I think the camera was sold in 1987 for 80 rubles. It was later (recently, when barcodes became available) made it into some store and was offered for sale used for 25.00, not sure what currency was there. This is too little in roubles and even in Ukrainian gryvnas. Probably dollars, or "uslovnyx edinits".