The prototype bears the name of its owner and inventor, Oskar Barnack.
The first pocket camera with photo reel was auctioned this Saturday in Wetzlar, Germany, for 14.4 million euros. It is the highest award in history for a photographic device. It is one of the few prototypes that still exist of the Leica 0 series, almost a century old and that counts as one of the first devices to use 135mm coils, the format that eventually gained the upper hand among amateurs and professionals.
The prototype with serial number 105 is unique in that it bears the name of its owner and inventor, Oskar Barnack, head of development at the German company Leitz. His compact Leica, which went into mass production in 1924 and hit the market in 1925, revolutionized the world of photography and especially journalism.
The sales representatives in Wetzlar, where the world’s most important auctions of old cameras and optical devices are held twice a year, emphasized that the device has always been in the hands of the inventor’s family and that it was bought by an American collector. Before the auction started, it was valued at two to three million euros and had a starting price of one million. Until now, the most expensive camera in the world was also a device from the Leica 0 series, namely the 122, which was sold in 2018 at the 32nd edition of the “Leitz Photographica Auction” in Wetzlar for 2.4 million euros.
The event organizers emphasized that only 23 of the Leica 0-series prototypes were produced, of which only half have been preserved. The prototypes saw the light of day in 1923, a year before mass production began of the compact camera that made photography accessible to everyone. “The Leica 0 with serial number 105 is not only the most important and significant Leica in existence, but also one of the most remarkable milestones in the history of photography,” emphasizes the auction catalog.
Source: La Verdad
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