A Leica prototype that personally belonged to Oscar Barnack – the inventor of Leica – sold for 14.4 million euros ($ 15 million) at an auction days ago, becoming the most expensive camera in the world.
According to foreign media, the camera is one of only approximately 22 Leica 0 Series 0s produced in 1923 to test the market, two years before the Leica A commercial presentation.
It is also one of about a dozen that has survived to the present day, according to auction house Vienna-based Leitz Photographica, which organized the sale.
Specializing in historic cameras and accessories, Auction Leitz Photographica operates under the umbrella of Leica Camera Classics, an Austrian subsidiary of Leica Camera AG.
“It was therefore a special pleasure for us to be able to auction off Oscar Barnack’s personal camera, a prototype of the generation that laid the foundations for modern photography in the mid-1920s,” said Alexander Sedlak, managing director. of Leica Camera Classics in a statement.
Prior to the sale, the device was estimated to be worth between 2 million and 3 million euros.
Previously, the highest price achieved by a camera at auction was also for a Leica 0 series, with serial number 122.
It reached 2.4 million euros in a 2018 sale at Leitz Photographica Auction, according to Sedlak.
