If you’re interested in the golden Thai Leica M-10 special edition, you’ll have to take part in a Christie’s auction in… Bangkok, Thailand.

Altogether 30 kits were manufactured. 10 kits with a gold-plated camera body and yellow crocodile leather, along with each a gold-plated APO Summicron 50/2 ASPH and Summilux 35/1.4 ASPH. And 20 kits with a gold-plated camera body, but green crocodile leather and the golden APO Summicron 50/2 ASPH.

Now if you’re really interested, here’s the challenge. Eight of those 30 sets are already off the market. Six were given to the royal Thai family, while two were stored away – one in Leica’s museum, one in the museum of ThaiBev, Thailand’s largest distiller, which is also the initiator behind this Leica limited edition project.

The remaining 22 kits come up for auction: 21 on September 30, 2022, in Bangkok. Four golden sets come under the hammer and 17 green ones. One kit will be auctioned off later on in Singapore. Bidders must register with auction house Christie’s Thailand at least one week before the event.

In case you wonder what sort of prices to expect: the 10 yellow cameras are priced at 1,500,000 baht each, approx. 42,500 dollars. The 20 green cameras are worth one million baht each, approx. 28,300 dollars.

That’s a markup of about 30 percent on the production price. I know this from the horse’s mouth.

“We originally had these cameras made to sell to the public, with the idea of giving the money to the king so he could use it for his charitable donations,” Nitikorn Kraiwichien, head of ThaiBev’s Photography Promotion Foundation, told the Bangkok Post. “But there was so much demand for them.” So ThaiBev decided to buy up all the cameras, organize an auction and then donate the proceeds to charitable foundations in Thailand.

Just that you know, I’ll be at the auction. Drop a note if you need more info.