Leica’s inventor Oskar Barnack’s camera was up for bids and was anticipated to bring in a nice little PKR 753 million ($3 million). The Leica 0-Series Model 105 owned by Barnack has now sold for PKR 3.1 billion ($15 million), that is five times the original bid making it the priciest camera ever sold.
According to RobbReport, the camera owned by Oskar Barnack was put up for auction and was predicted to fetch $3 million.
The company released the 0-Series to test the market two years prior to the release of the Leica A. Only about 22 were ever produced, and today there are fewer than 12 left, according to the Leitz Auction.
Oskar Barnack, the man who created Leica, owned camera number 105; his name is inscribed on the Galilean viewfinder. (This is the kind of viewfinder found in older cameras.)
This camera was reportedly used by Barnack until 1930, when he gave it to his son Conrad and switched to the Leica I Model C, which has interchangeable lenses. The 0-Series Model 105 was still in Barnack’s family up until 1960, when it was acquired by an American collector.
With the anticipation that the camera would bring in around three million euros, bidding started at one million euros. A little over $15 million, or 14.4 million euros, was the final selling price. It surpasses the old best set by the auction house, which realised $2.5 million from the sale of a Leica 0-Series no. 122 in 2018.
In addition to the heavily altered camera (which Barnack used for photographic research), the wealthy buyer will also get the original leather lens cap, an aluminium cap personalised with Barnack’s initials, and correspondence related to the Model 105.
There were plenty of other intriguing pieces of Leica equipment and memorabilia up for auction, though none have been quite as remarkable as the Model 105.
A black-paint Leica MP brought in $100,000, while one of Barnack’s original prints created in 1914 on an Ur-Leica sold for $9,400. Leica MP Unique Gold, another object about which we had previously written, sold for just over $75,000 at auction.
