Where could someone buy a Nikon camera in 1973? What stores sold them and what was the pricing for them?

Where could someone buy a Nikon camera in 1973? What stores sold them and what was the pricing for them?

Camera Shops and catalog retailers like Service Merchandise.

There wete a number of mail order camera shops like B&H Photo.

Photography / camera stores were very prevalent in that time period, and for many years earlier and later. Practically any town of any size had some form of "camera shop", typically locally owned, not some type of chain store. You could buy most any kind of camera you wanted as these stores sold most all brands, Nikon, Canon, MInolta, Pentax, Polaroid, Mamiya, Olympus etc etc. I can't remember the exact prices, but then as now, it was NOT an inexpensive purchase for good equipment.

There were a lot of local camera dealers.

Most stocked all of the popular brands;
some would have had exclusive rights for a particular brand in a given area.

Many dealers sold cameras for list or even higher prices
unless there was a competitor nearby.

Back in those days, you buy a camera from a camera store. Unless you go to a place where there are lots of camera stores, pricing would be quite higher than normal.

A new Nikon F2 and lens would cost almost as much as a small car.

The older F would've ben slightly cheaper.

This is why the Nikkormats were introduced, to increase Nikon's share of the market (Nikon only made SLRs at the time), but even these budget models would cost several months' salary.

B&H out of New York. Pricing varied upon model.

There were lots of discount camera shops in NY at that time and you could often find "grey market" cameras which were imported outside of legitimate channels and were sold more cheaply. Those stores were always closed on Saturday since they were run by orthodox Jews.

In Britain in the early 1970s there were many specialised camera shops. They could sell you Nikons and other cameras of good brand. Prices were higher in relation to average income than the prices of similar cameras today. Of course, they all used film - no digital cameras in those days! And no internet shopping, though there were a few mail-order stores.