An unnamed Asian buyer purchased a rare Leica camera, one of only four of its kind in the world, for $620,000 at a Hong Kong auction. The 1932 Leica Luxus II, shown on the left with its case, fetched HK$4.84 million on November 22 in an auction where about 80 cameras and accessories went under the hammer.
You can buy other Leica Luxus IIs on eBay, but not the gold-plated version that comes with a crocodile skin case. Only four of the Luxus II cameras were ever made, the whereabouts of the other three are unknown.
Another rare camera, a 1930 Leica Luxus I, sold for the same price. Again, you can find much cheaper, not gold-plated versions on eBay.
$620.000, BTW, is about what the virgin Leica M aims to fetch, shown on the right. According to a Leica, this Leica M a.k.a Leica RED named after Jony and Marc’s RED charity auction camera took two years to design and build and is the only camera ever designed by Jony Ive, the designer behind some of Apple’s most successful products.
It’s also, as far as I can tell, the only digital camera to cost more than half a million dollars. Even by Leica’s standards, this is an expensive camera.
+++ Update: Well now we know, the Leica RED fetched $1.8 million.
Hmm, they finally gave up on CaNikon? Makes me think of good old Simon & Garfunkel’s pre-digital’s Kodachrome…:
When I think back
On all the crap I learned in high school
It’s a wonder
I can think at all
And though my lack of education
Hasn’t hurt me none
I can read the writing on the wallKodachrome
You give us those nice bright colors
You give us the greens of summers
Makes you think all the world’s a sunny day, oh yeah!
I got a Nikon camera
I love to take a photograph
So Mama, don’t take my Kodachrome awayIf you took all the girls I knew
When I was single
And brought them all together for one night
I know they’d never match
My sweet imagination
And everything looks worse in black and whiteKodachrome
You give us those nice bright colors
You give us the greens of summers
Makes you think all the world’s a sunny day, oh yeah!
I got a Nikon camera
I love to take a photograph
So Mama, don’t take my Kodachrome awayMama, don’t take my Kodachrome away
(…)