From The Keppler Files: October, 1989

Here, for the first time anywhere is the strange and wonderful story of current and discontinued cameras.

When a new camera is announced, you can be fairly certain it isn’t already discontinued. But what happens to the other camera models in the line? If the new camera represents an obviously upgraded improvement over the old, the camera maker probably let stocks for the old model dwindle to almost nothing before introducing the new version.

Does the maker list the old model as discontinued? Maybe yes and maybe no. He may keep both in the current catalog only until no old models are left—to help sell the old model.