A 1923 Leica 0 series camera was just sold for €2,400,000 (~$2,957,304) at auction, setting the new record for world’s most expensive camera.
The historic purchase was done at the 32nd Westlicht camera auction in Vienna, Austria, on March 10th, where the camera (serial number 122) had a starting price of €400,000 (~$492,672). The price was bid up 6 times by the time the hammer fell, pushing the sale price above the $2.79 million paid for another Leica 0 series (serial number 116) at the Westlicht auction in 2012.
There are only 12 known surviving Leica 0 series prototype cameras in the world today of the original 25 that were produced by Ernst Leitz. And only three of the surviving cameras are still in pristine condition.
These Leica 0 series cameras have been seeing a consistent price increase in recent years. Copies were sold for $435,000 in 2007, $1.89 million in 2011, $2.79 million in 2012, and now $2.96 million in 2018.
“It is the highest price ever paid for a camera at an auction,” Westlicht writes. “[T]he 10 most expensive cameras of all times were sold by WestLicht Auctions during the last several years.”
Adafruit publishes a wide range of writing and video content, including interviews and reporting on the maker market and the wider technology world. Our standards page is intended as a guide to best practices that Adafruit uses, as well as an outline of the ethical standards Adafruit aspires to. While Adafruit is not an independent journalistic institution, Adafruit strives to be a fair, informative, and positive voice within the community – check it out here: adafruit.com/editorialstandards
Stop breadboarding and soldering – start making immediately! Adafruit’s Circuit Playground is jam-packed with LEDs, sensors, buttons, alligator clip pads and more. Build projects with Circuit Playground in a few minutes with the drag-and-drop MakeCode programming site, learn computer science using the CS Discoveries class on code.org, jump into CircuitPython to learn Python and hardware together, TinyGO, or even use the Arduino IDE. Circuit Playground Express is the newest and best Circuit Playground board, with support for CircuitPython, MakeCode, and Arduino. It has a powerful processor, 10 NeoPixels, mini speaker, InfraRed receive and transmit, two buttons, a switch, 14 alligator clip pads, and lots of sensors: capacitive touch, IR proximity, temperature, light, motion and sound. A whole wide world of electronics and coding is waiting for you, and it fits in the palm of your hand.
Have an amazing project to share? The Electronics Show and Tell is every Wednesday at 7pm ET! To join, head over to YouTube and check out the show’s live chat – we’ll post the link there.
