_0.jpg?fit=%2C&ssl=1 "Sold: This Rare Leica Is Now the Most Expensive Camera Ever")
The rare Leica 0 with the number 105 was last weekend sold at the Leitz Photographica Auction in Wetzlar, Germany. Prior to the auction, the value of the camera with great historical significance was estimated at 2 to 3 million euros.
The nearly 100-year-old camera is one of the world’s first 35mm cameras and had a prominent previous owner: Oskar Barnack, who himself designed the ‘Liliput camera’ shortly before World War I. Before the first 35 mm cameras came on the market in the mid-1920s, Ernst Leitz of Leica already made 23 models of the prototype 0 series in 1923 and 1924.
The most expensive camera to date was also a Leica 0, serial number 122, which sold for 2.4 million euros in 2018.
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Vintage cameras are worth more
“We were delighted to be able to auction Oskar Barnack’s personal camera, a prototype of the camera generation that laid the foundation for modern photography in the mid-1920s,” said Alexander Sedlak, CEO of Leica Camera Classics, whose involved auction house is a part.
According to Sedlak, the record amount proves a trend of recent years. “Prices are rising – interest in vintage cameras is greater than ever.”
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